India deems the 1963 agreement between Pakistan and China over the Shaksgam Valley as illegal and does not approve of any activities in that region, army chief Upendra Dwivedi said on Tuesday amid a verbal battle between New Delhi and Beijing on the issue.

“We do not approve of any activity in the Shaksgam Valley. Our external affairs ministry has already issued a statement on this. We consider it an illegal action being carried out by the two nations (Pakistan and China),” General Dwivedi said.

China on Monday reaffirmed its territorial claims over the Shaksgam Valley against the backdrop of India’s objections, claiming that the Chinese infrastructure projects in the area were "beyond reproach".

New Delhi says that in 1963, Islamabad illegally ceded to China 5,180sqkm of Indian territory in the Shaksgam Valley that Pakistan had illegally occupied.

India claims the Shaksgam Valley, set to the north of the Karakoram watershed, is a part of Jammu and Kashmir.

Last week, India criticised China’s infrastructure development projects in the area, saying New Delhi reserved the right to take necessary measures to safeguard its interests in what was Indian territory.

Ladakh lieutenant governor Kavinder Gupta on Tuesday warned China that it was dealing with the “Bharat of 2026, and not of 1962”.

He rejected Beijing’s claims over the Shaksgam Valley on the grounds that the “entire region of Pakistan-occupied Jammu-Kashmir (PoJK) belongs to India”.

Gupta, who spoke to reporters in Jammu, said no expansionist attempt would be tolerated.

“India’s Parliament passed a resolution (in 1994) under which the whole of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is ours. Anybody making claims to the contrary is not right,” Gupta said.

“We do not know what Pakistan has traded with China. China should understand that nothing will be achieved through its expansionist policy. India is capable and it is not the India of 1962. It is the Bharat of 2026. Any such attempts will be foiled.”

Gupta underscored that China had also long claimed parts of Arunachal Pradesh as its territory.

He hit out at Pakistan, accusing it of having failed its citizens and having no concern for its sovereignty or its own people.

“Voices are being raised in Balochistan, Sindh and Karachi, and atrocities are being committed by the Pakistan army there. Those areas are virtually being run by the army,” he said.

Gupta rejected claims that Ladakh was facing an unrest over the demand for special status under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.

He said the region was progressing and Ladakhis were “united and fully nationalistic” people who supported the government’s development projects.