India must suitably respond to China issuing stapled VISA to Indian Nationals
China continues to play its mind games with India. Once again China has issued stapled visas to people from Arunachal Pradesh, who were due to participate in an international sporting event in China.
Three members of India’s Wushu team were issued a stapled visas since they are from Arunachal Pradesh. Therefore India decided not to send the entire team to China and the team returned from IGI airport.
“This has been something that we have discussed many years ago. Our longstanding and consistent position is that there should be no discrimination or differential treatment on the basis of domicile or ethnicity in the visa regime for Indian citizens holding valid Indian passports,” Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said.
“It has come to our notice that stapled visas were issued to some of our citizens representing the country in an international sporting event in China. This is unacceptable. And we have lodged our strong protest with the Chinese side reiterating our consistent position on the matter and India reserves the right to suitably respond to such actions,” he added.
India has lodged a strong protest with China for issuing stapled visas to Indian nationals from Arunachal Pradesh and termed it “unacceptable”, adding that New Delhi reserves its right to suitably respond to such actions, Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday.
And India must respond mere words are not enough. From now onwards any visa being issued by India to citizens from Xinjiang and Hong Kong must be a staple one only.
Earlier in April, India out rightly rejected China’s attempt to rename places of Arunachal Pradesh, Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Arindam Bagchi asserted that Arunachal Pradesh will always be an integral part of India.
The statement of Arindam Bagchi came after China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs announced the names of 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh, which it referred to as “Zangnan, the southern part of Tibet.”
In response to media queries regarding China renaming some places in Arunachal Pradesh, Arindam Bagchi in a statement said, “We have seen such reports. This is not the first time China has made such an attempt. We reject this outright.”
He further said, “Arunachal Pradesh is, has been, and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India. Attempts to assign invented names will not alter this reality.”
In response an Indo Tibetan sports meet should be organised in Arunachal Pradesh which should be jointly inaugurated by President of India and His Holiness Dalai Lama.
