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India has moved 6,000 troops close to the Indo-Bhutanese-Chinese border. Though India's army chief called the move routine, rumors in India tell of Chinese incursions into India and Bhutan.

Over the past three to four months the Indian army has moved 6,000 troops from Jammu and Kashmir states to a point on its border with China and Bhutan, Indian army chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor announced Dec. 13. Though Kapoor called this is a routine rotation, the troop movements to the east follow a series of allegations by India of Chinese incursions in Bhutan and disputed territory in India’s troubled northeast. Kapoor also noted the serious threat of jihadist infiltration from Pakistan across India’s northern Jammu and Kashmir border, making the Indian troop move to the northeast all the more unusual.

India has been rife with alarmist reports of Chinese incursions across the border of Arunachal Pradesh in northeastern India, a border China does not formally recognize, and in neighboring Bhutan. A Chinese demand for India to remove two bunkers in Sikkim state, which Beijing claims were built on the Chinese side of the Indo-Chinese border, amplified these concerns.