India issues ‘strong demarche’ after woman ‘held up at Shanghai airport’ over Arunachal mention in passport

Prema Thongdok, who is in her 30s and has been living in the United Kingdom for 14 years, is originally from Rupa in Arunachal Pradesh’s West Kameng district, where her family still lives.

She works as a financial adviser and said that she was travelling from London to Japan, with a scheduled three-hour transit in Shanghai Pudong Airport on November 21. According to her, she had landed at Shanghai that morning and was singled out during the security check for her onward flight.

“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,” she told The Indian Express.

“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 refused 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 said.

She further said that after several hours, she demanded access to a phone and that 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 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,” she said.

She said she wrote an email to the Ministry of External Affairs 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. She has 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.

Sources in 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, the source said.

According to the source, it was also highlighted that the actions of the Chinese authorities are in contravention of the Chicago and Montreal Conventions relating to civil aviation.

At a time when both sides are working on restoring normalcy, such actions by the Chinese side introduce unnecessary obstructions to the process, sources said.