China social media deletes PM Narendra Modi's speech, Centre's response on Ladakh

New Delhi : Indian embassy officials in China have claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech to chief ministers on June 18 as well as the comments by the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been removed from two Chinese social media accounts, including Weibo.

This comes at a time when India and China were involved in a violent face-off at the Galwan Valley region in eastern Ladakh on Monday. As many as 20 Indian soldiers were martyred during the battle.

Indian Embassy officials said the transcript of the remarks of the MEA spokesman Anurag Srivastava was also deleted from the Embassy's account of Sina Weibo on June 18.

After that the Indian officials re-published the screen shots of Mr Srivastava's comments on June 19.

Sina Weibo which is similar to Twitter in China has millions of users and all embassies in Beijing besides several world leaders including PM Modi have opened their accounts to interact with the Chinese people.

The MEA spokesperson's remarks have also been removed from the official WeChat account. A note on WeChat says, "Unable to view this content because it violates regulations."

Prime Minister Modi's remarks on June 18 about Indian soldiers killed in Galwan clash has also become inaccessible on WeChat. The page says that the "content has been deleted by the author," whereas the Embassy officials said they have not removed it.

In his comments, Srivastava had asked China to restrict its activities to its side of the Line of Actual Control and that it must not take any unilateral action to alter it.

Emphasising that the sacrifice of Indian soldiers killed in the Galwan Valley clash in Ladakh will not go in vain, PM Modi said that India wants peace but is capable of giving a befitting reply, if instigated.

PM Modi had opened his account on Weibo during his visit to China in 2015 and continued to make use of it to interact with the Chinese people. No posts related to the recent military confrontation were posted on his page.