The Gaya police on Thursday said it has detained a Chinese woman identified as Song Xiaolan for staying on an expired visa. The woman was apprehended after a security alert was sounded amid suspicion of a threat to Buddhist spiritual guru Dalai Lama who arrived in the tourist town on December 22 on a month-long visit.
The woman has been taken into police custody and is being questioned. Gaya police said it had received a security alert and also issued a sketch of the woman with her passport and visa details on Thursday.
“We have received input regarding a Chinese woman’s overstay. We have been talking to monasteries… We have already intensified security for the visiting Dalai Lama, whose security is our top agenda,” Harpreet Kaur, Senior Superintendent of Police, Gaya, said, adding that everyone living in monasteries has been issued identity cards as a standard security protocol.
On Thursday morning, the Gaya police said that it received inputs of a Chinese woman who had been staying in Gaya for the past two years. However, serious suspicions were raised after the woman could not be traced. “Suspicion of her being a Chinese spy can’t be ruled out,” the SSP had said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs has termed it “a security issue” and declined to comment further on it. “It looks like a security issue, I don’t have any update on it. I certainly don’t think this is the right forum to talk about security-related aspects,” MEA Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, adding that the government has a liaison officer there.
The Gaya Police is on high alert in view of the visit of Dalai Lama who arrived in Bodh Gaya on December 22 for his annual three-day Kaal Chakra Puja which began on Thursday. The Tibetan spiritual guru has arrived in India for the Puja after a gap of two years in view of the pandemic.
It was during the same Puja in January 2018 that saw a low-intensity bomb explosion coinciding with the Dalai Lama’s visit to the town. In 2021, a special NIA court convicted eight out of nine Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) members for their role in the IED explosion.
