India Protests After Arunachal-Born UK Resident Held 18 Hours over border dispute

India has reportedly lodged a protest with China after a UK-based woman from the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh was detained for about 18 hours during a transit stop at the Shanghai Pudong airport, allegedly because officials claimed her passport was invalid.

Prema Thongdok, originally from Rupa in Arunachal’s West Kameng area, was flying from London to Japan on 21 November with a three-hour layover in Shanghai where she was pulled aside during security screening immediately after landing.

“On 16 October 16, I had very successfully transited through the same airport. There was no issue, which is why it’s 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 had happened, and they pointed at my passport, which has Arunachal Pradesh as my birthplace,” said Ms Thongdok, who has been living in the UK for 14 years and works as a financial advisor.

“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,” Ms Thongdok, who is in her 30s, told the Indian Express.

She alleged the staff even mocked her. “One of them even said that I should get a Chinese passport, because I am Chinese.”

Ms Thongdok said she was held in the airport for 18 hours without food, her passport was confiscated and she was blocked from taking her onward flight despite carrying a valid visa.

“They refused to let me travel on to Japan,” she said. “They insisted that I have to either fly back to the UK or fly to India.”

New Delhi said its consulate in the city was alerted to the incident and “intervened” on the ground.

“Our consulate in Shanghai also took up the matter locally and extended the fullest assistance to the stranded passenger,” the Express quoted an anonymous source as saying.

New Delhi then issued a “strong demarche” to Beijing.

China claims Arunachal as a part of southern Tibet while India maintains that state is its “integral and inalienable part”.

The nuclear-armed neighbours share a largely ill-defined 3,000km border. According to the Crisis Group, the frontier, stretching across the high Himalayas, is the “longest disputed border in the world”.

Ms Thongdok said she eventually asked for a phone and contacted friends, who alerted Indian officials.

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“After I got in touch with the consulate, six officials arrived at the airport within an hour and brought me food,” she said.

Chinese authorities still refused to clear her onward travel and told her to book only on China Eastern Airlines. She finally flew to India via Thailand.

Ms Thongdok later wrote to the Indian foreign ministry, calling the declaration of her passport as “invalid” a “direct challenge to India’s sovereignty and deeply distressing” to any Indian citizen.

She added that “a bilateral or geopolitical matter was misdirected at a private Indian citizen” and sought compensation for “harassment, distress, and physical and mental suffering”.

“Despite being in the UK for so many years, I have not given up my Indian passport because I love my country,” Ms Thongdok said, arguing that she “probably wouldn’t have had an experience like this if I had a British passport”.