Stapled visas for ‘disputed’ Arunachal region,says China

However,China held that stapled visas have been issued to residents of the ‘disputed region’ for years. “This has been happening for over 20 years,according to my information,” an official in the Chinese embassy told the The Indian Express,a day after India protested over issue of stapled visas to two Arunachal residents.

“We call it south Tibet,whereas India calls it by a different name. We haven’t yet solved the border dispute there… there is nothing new in this,” the official said,adding that officials from that state are not issued any visa.

The incident of issuance of stapled visas to residents of Arunachal Pradesh came to light when a sportsman and an official from that state were prevented by immigration officials from boarding a flight on Wednesday from New Delhi to Beijing since they had stapled visas given by Chinese Embassy on their passports.

Indian Weightlifting Federation’s Joint Secretary Abraham K Techi along with a weightlifter of the state were taken aback when officials at IGI Airport turned them away because of the stapled visas.

Reacting to the Chinese action,the Ministry of External Affairs said India considers Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part of India and has conveyed to the Chinese side that a uniform process of issue of visas to Indian citizens be followed regardless of applicant’s ethnicity or place of domicile.

Maintaining that both the athletes are reportedly domiciles of Arunachal Pradesh,the Ministry recalled that a travel advisory had been issued in November,2009 cautioning Indian citizens that Chinese visas stapled to passports were not valid for travel outside the country.

China started issuing stapled visas to people from Jammu and Kashmir from the later part of 2008 in an attempt to project it as a disputed area.