The UK-based Indian woman said authorities at the airport held her for 18 hours and pointed at Arunachal Pradesh being mentioned as her birthplace in her passport. According to her, they told her that Arunachal Pradesh ‘is a part of China’.
A three-hour transit at Shanghai turned into an ordeal for a UK-based woman originally from Arunachal Pradesh, who alleged that she was held at the airport for 18 hours on the grounds that her Indian passport specifying her place of birth as Arunachal Pradesh is “invalid”.
India has launched a protest with China over the incident. Sources 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,” a source said.
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.
