New Delhi: India has launched a strong protest with China over the harassment of a woman from Arunachal Pradesh at Shanghai’s Pudong airport on November 21.
Officials from the Ministry of External Affairs said that a “strong demarche” was made with the Chinese side in Beijing and in Delhi on the same day the incident took place.
“Our Consulate in Shanghai also took up the matter locally and extended fullest assistance to the stranded passenger,” an official said.
Pema Thongdok, originally from Rupa in the West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh, was travelling to Japan from the UK, where she works as a financial adviser and has been living for the last 14 years. Her travel plan involved a three-hour stopover at Shanghai. This stop turned into an 18 hour ordeal, she narrated.
“On October 16, I had very successfully transited through the same airport. There was no issue, which is why it is clear that this was a case of harassment. I was waiting in the queue at the security gate when a lady came, singled me out, and took me out of the queue. I asked the authorities there what happened, and they pointed at my passport, which has Arunachal Pradesh as my birthplace. They were insisting that Arunachal Pradesh is a part of China, and that therefore my passport is not valid. I asked them what laws state this or what written document specifies that such a passport is invalid,” Pema said.
“One of them even said that I should get a Chinese passport, because I am Chinese. They were mocking me. I was held at the airport for 18 hours, after I had already travelled 12 hours from London. They kept my passport and didn’t let me leave. I didn’t have access to food. Because there is no Google [in China], I didn’t have access to information either. They refu
sed to let me travel on to Japan even though I had a valid visa for Japan. They insisted that I have to either fly back to the UK or fly to India,” she added.
After several hours, she demanded access to a phone and said she wanted to contact a lawyer.
“I actually called my friends in the UK to get their help to get in touch with the Indian consulate in Shanghai. After I got in touch with the consulate, six officials from there arrived at the airport within an hour and brought me food. They tried to get them (the Chinese authorities) to let me travel onward to Japan, but they refused to allow that. They also insisted that I only book my flight out with China Eastern Airlines. I finally booked a flight to India with a transit stop in Thailand, and have stayed back in Thailand now, and am working remotely from there,” Pema said.
She wrote an email to the MEA detailing the experience and raising multiple concerns, including the declaration of her Indian passport as “invalid”, which she said was a “direct challenge to India’s sovereignty and deeply distressing to any Indian citizen”.
“A bilateral or geopolitical matter was misdirected at a private Indian citizen, which should never occur in any international transit setting,” she wrote.
Pema requested that this incident be taken up “strongly” with the Chinese government and that compensation be secured for “harassment, distress, and physical and mental suffering” as well as “financial losses”.
“Despite being in the UK for so many years, I have not given up my Indian passport because I love my country and don’t want to be a foreigner in my own land, though I probably would not have had an experience like this if I had a British passport,” she said.
The MEA said the Indian side stressed to the Chinese side that the passenger had been detained on “ludicrous grounds”. Arunachal Pradesh is indisputably Indian territory, and its residents are perfectly entitled to hold and travel with Indian passports, an official said.
It was also highlighted that the actions of the Chinese authorities are in contravention of the Chicago and Montreal Conventions relating to civil aviation, he added.