India on Thursday lodged a strong protest against China for issuing "stapled visas" to some Indian players who will be representing the country at the World University Games. According to the media reports, three players in the team are from Arunachal Pradesh. They were reportedly barred from travelling by the Arunachal government as the trio team was given stapled visas by China. The games were scheduled for July 28- August 8.
It is worth mentioning China gives staple visas to Indian residents of Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu Kashmir as it claims the areas as part of Tibet and therefore its own.
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As per a report published in Hindustan Times, at least 12 people including players and coaches were scheduled to travel to Chengdu. Although nine of them received visas on time, the documents for the Arunachal athletes (Nyeman Wangsu, Onilu Tega and Mepung Lamgu ) were not accepted.
They were finally asked to submit their documents again on Tuesday, and the Chinese embassy returned the passports with stapled visas on Wednesday, as per the report. It claimed that the three players were scheduled to depart for Chengdu on Thursday night while the rest were flown on Wednesday night.
India says it has the right to respond
Meanwhile, reacting to the issue, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi called the move "unacceptable" and said India will respond to such actions.
"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," he said during a regular press conference on Thursday. This is unacceptable. And we have lodged our strong protest with the Chinese side reiterating our consistent position on the matter and India deserves the right to suitably respond to such actions," added Bagchi.
In the past too, there were instances of China issuing stapled visas to Indians from Arunachal Pradesh that drew sharp reactions from New Delhi. In April, India outrightly rejected China's renaming some places in Arunachal Pradesh, asserting that the state is an integral part of India and assigning "invented" names does not alter this reality.
