Arunachal Woman Detained at Shanghai Airport Over ‘Arunachal Linkage’ | India Seeks Assurances

Arunachal woman Prema Thongdok faced an ordeal at Shanghai Airport after officials questioned her Indian passport, citing her Arunachal Pradesh birthplace. She detailed the harassment in a letter to senior Indian authorities, urging action. Indian officials are now seeking assurances and clarity from China after her distressing experience triggered diplomatic concern.

#PremaThongdok #ArunachalPradesh #ShanghaiAirport #IndiaChina #DiplomaticRow #TravelHarassment #NortheastIndia #BreakingUpdate #World

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Transcript

00:00anuji ready all right okay um three two one thank you so much for speaking to eni

00:13and the audience tangai airport if you can narrate that please yes so basically i am

00:22a indian citizen residing in uk for about 14 years um and i was traveling on my holiday from london

00:31gatwick to japan uh via a transit in shanghai and basically i went past the e-gates um happily

00:42queuing up for the security gates to transfer on to my next flight to on to osaka in japan and

00:48um one of the officials from the chinese immigration came over and singled me out of the queue um

00:56basically said look india india you know took my name and something and took me out so i asked her

01:01what is happening and she she basically didn't say much and just basically asked me to follow her

01:06uh took me close to the e-gates where there is the immigration um the manual counters for the

01:13immigration and then she went on to say arnachal not in not india china china your visa not uh

01:21acceptable your uh basically passport is invalid um very confusing moment obviously because uh

01:28never heard of that before we obviously are a proud indian citizens all residents of arnachal pradesh

01:36and basically she wouldn't give me an explanation she wouldn't let me go back into the queue

01:41uh said you cannot board the plane um then other officials came so the actually i probably

01:47interacted with around 10 other immigration officers so another lady came took me to another uh part of

01:54the airport and in fact when i tried to question them and ask them what what was the issue they said

02:01um arnachal is not part of india very clearly and they said you should apply and started mocking and

02:08laughing and saying things like you should apply for chinese passport you're chinese you're not indian

02:13um some mockery around there then basically i they took me to the transfer desk of china eastern which

02:20is next to an immigration desk and they would just keep basically sending me from one desk to the other

02:27so if i ask the chinese airline they tell me to go to the immigration the immigration tells me to go to

02:32them and they basically didn't give me a straight answer i said where is the law what what rights have

02:38you got to hold me back here so ultimately it took about 18 hours for me to get out of shanghai

02:46what is shocking to me is i have in fact transited through shanghai in the past a year ago with no

02:54issues at all in fact the first time that i ever transited through china i spoke to the chinese embassy in

03:00london and they said with a short layover of about three to six hours you don't need a visa so

03:06obviously um i work actually in the regulatory space in london as well so i know that how important

03:12rules are and i'm well aware of the regulations and obviously i wanted to make sure that i knew

03:20what i was doing before i flew out and obviously i have transited very successfully and easily through

03:25shanghai before through china having consulted the chinese embassy in london um but at this time i feel

03:33maybe it was the weekend they knew that they uh you know the offices are closed uh the timing was as such

03:40that i couldn't actually call the chinese embassy in london so i um after a lot of ordeal because there

03:47there was no wi-fi the wi-fi was really slow and even if i did get connected to wi-fi you can't open google

03:53you can't open um any of the socials like your facebook or whatsapp so i couldn't get in touch with

03:59my family for a very long time uh ultimately with a lot of harassment and basically no access to food

04:06not allowing me to uh leave that part of the terminal there wasn't a proper space given to us to

04:12basically rest after a 12-hour flight all the way from london um at one point in time because i kept

04:19going up to them every hour or so asking them what is the issue why they're holding me back what

04:24what legal uh rights or rules do you have that says that indian nationals and they would just dismiss

04:31every time i tried to speak to them in fact in a very unprofessional manner uh there was one point

04:37in time when i was near the counter that i was trying to speak to them and there was about three or

04:41four uh airline staff of china eastern and about two other immigration officers and all of them were

04:48basically um speaking in their language and saying and pointing out and saying our natural natural

04:54and laughing and calling it china no india um so that kind of very humiliating um you know questionable

05:01behavior from the immigration staff as well as the airline staff um yeah so it was quite an ordeal

05:08until finally i got hold of a friend basically by calling using their landline uh i i basically said to

05:16them look i have legal rights i i need to call a lawyer or something you have to give me ways to

05:21communicate with somebody nobody knows i'm stuck here so i called up a friend in london uh they helped

05:27me to basically get the details because even if i had a little bit of internet it doesn't open google so

05:34i couldn't find the immigration uh details so i called up the shanghai and beijing indian embassies

05:41and within an hour very very um you know helpful in fact i'm very glad that the indian officials

05:48came to the airport and then basically they got me some food and basically spoke through the issues

05:54with them and helped me get out of the country so a very long ordeal 18 hours but glad that i'm out of

06:02there yeah but obviously i've missed my flights my you know all the plans that i had took a lot of time to

06:08even get the visa for japan i had all the right documents everything um i don't understand and

06:14i i can even check on the rules it says that you don't need a transit visa if your stay is less than

06:21a couple of hours it was only there for three hours but their argument was i don't have a valid document

06:27i mean i have traveled to 58 countries i um have used my indian passport everywhere it's a valid

06:34document but apparently not in china uh i guess uh you also wrote uh uh to the senior officials as

06:44well uh if you can talk to us about that yes i mean so um once i got out of there obviously very

06:50exhausted so the next day i looked up whatever details i could find on the internet um so i

06:56basically wrote an email copying in the ministry of external affairs uh you know the pmo office uh

07:03cm of our natural pradesh um foreign secretary so whatever information i could get hold of of the

07:10higher-ups in the government uh basically i have written out to them obviously um you know such an

07:17incident shouldn't happen to someone um who is just a normal citizen like i don't even work for the

07:23government so i don't have a say in such diplomatic matters and um just to be harassed for so many

07:30hours um i think it might be uh quite um quite a tactic by used by the chinese government to to hassle

07:40citizens of india especially from our natural uh because it was the weekend as well so they know

07:45that government officers are closed and such hours but yeah so that's how it all panned out and i'm

07:54just grateful to mr rajat and his team from the indian embassy who helped me get out of there uh finally

08:02around 10 30 pm so i was stuck for quite a while there uh this went with the last question mama any any

08:08expectation and assurances uh given from the side on any expectations uh going forward what would be

08:15your take i would say i mean obviously i want to raise this awareness that um you know residents and

08:21especially residents of the northeast of india should should not face such um you know harassment

08:29uh in terms of being called and being uh told that you are not part of the country that you're so proudly

08:37uh a citizen of and obviously would like the government of india to raise this on a diplomatic

08:43level with the chinese uh authorities that you know this is not something a regular citizen can

08:50resolve me saying whether or not it is part of india or china of course we are part of india i mean

08:56there we don't have any voting rights we don't have any rights in the in china we don't have any access

09:02to public funds in china so we are obviously not part of that uh we speak should hindi we don't

09:07understand sea of chinese we are all indian and i would just like to request the government of india

09:13to take strict actions against uh chinese authorities and the government on such matters um yes thank you

09:22so much thank you so much for your time thank you thank you so much thank you

09:32so

09:39you

09:41so

09:43you

Arunachal Woman Detained at Shanghai Airport Over ‘Arunachal Linkage’ | India Seeks Assurances

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