[A delivery truck drives along India's Tezpur-Tawang highway that runs to the Chinese border, in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, May 29, 2012. (File photo by=Frank Jack Daniel)]

BEIJING: China has returned an Indian citizen who "illegally" entered into Chinese territory at the disputed border between the two Asian giants, a military official said on Thursday (Jan 27).

Reuters reported that Thursday's announcement from China came after India's Defense Ministry said last week it had contacted China to request that it locate and return a 17-year-old Indian, Miram Tarom, who had been "reportedly captured" by the Chinese military after going missing near the countries' shared border. Kiren Rijiju, an Indian federal minister, said Tarom had been handed over to the Indian army at a border post in northeastern Arunachal Pradesh. China's announcement did not confirm the returned Indian citizen was Tarom, but it did add a warning to New Delhi. Colonel Long Shaohua, the spokesman for the Western Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), said the Indian citizen was found in recent days by Chinese border guards during a patrol.

The individual "illegally entered Chinese territory and then was routinely questioned, quarantined and observed in accordance with relevant border control regulations, and given humanitarian assistance", Long said in the statement posted on WeChat. India and China have frequently clashed over their long and disputed Himalayan border, and China claims the entirety of Arunachal Pradesh as part of its Tibet region.