New Delhi: In protest against Chinese policy to issue stapled visas to residents of Arunachal Pradesh, members of various organisations of the state marched from Arunachal Bhawan to Chinese Embassy on Saturday.
The protest rally was organised by Arunachal Civil Society (ACS) in association with various organizations from North East Region and rest of India.
The protesters submitted a memorandum of their demands to the Chinese ambassador.
"China has been issuing stapled visas to Indian citizens from Arunachal Pradesh since 1981 when it refused to issue a visa to then speaker of Arunachal Pradesh assembly, T.L. Rajkumar, to attend a conference. Since then such incidents have been repeated with several academicians and sportspersons," said ACS chairman Patey Tayum in the memorandum.
They also slammed the Indian government for not doing anything substantial to solve the issue.
J.T. Tagam, a senior representative of the Arunachal Pradesh Student's Union in Delhi, said the absence of any action by India has emboldened the Chinese army to intrude into many parts of Arunachal Pradesh.
“China has been issuing “Stapled Visa” to Indian citizens from Arunachal Pradesh since the last 34 years but the Govt of India is not showing any interest to solve this issue,” Tagam said.
“This is a National issue and hope every citizen of this country will wake up and do something before its too late,” Tagam further added.
"It is astonishing how the Indian government permitted Chinese engineers to work in the field situated in Arunachal Pradesh, while China continues to deny giving regular visa to people of Arunachal Pradesh," he said.
"Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently visited China (May 14-19), held talks on several issues related to industry, defence, and other bilateral agreements but not on the stapled visa issue. This was indeed very disappointing," said Patey Tayum, chairman of Arunachal Civil Society.
Tayum said that China issues stapled visas to the people of Arunachal Pradesh to undermine the dignity, integrity and sovereignty of India.
"We feel humiliated and insulted by the action of China and more so by the silence of India on the issue," Tayum said.
"India's lack of efforts to solve the staple visa issue is giving China an opportunity to continue doing whatever they want," he added.
Water cannon were sprayed to the protesters for pushing the barricades. Later 81 protesters were detained by Delhi Police at Parliament Street Police Station.
