Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prema Khandu took to X on Wednesday and expressed “deep shock” over the treatment of Prema Wangjom Thongdok by Chinese immigration authorities at Shanghai Pudong Airport. Khandu said that the she is a “proud Indian citizen from Arunachal Pradesh” and that subjecting her to “humiliation” despite of having an Indian passport was “appalling” behaviour. “Arunachal Pradesh is, and will always be an integral part of India. Any insinuation otherwise is baseless and offensive,” Khandu said.
He further added that this kind of conduct violates international norms and is an “affront to the dignity of our citizens”. Khandu said that he was confident that the MEA would take the matter seriously and approach the matter with urgetly so that incidents like these are not repeated in the future.
What happened with Prema Wangjom Thongdok?
Prema Wangjom Thongdok from Arunachal Pradesh recently claimed that Chinese immigration officials at Shanghai Pudong Airport called her Indian passport invalid and held her back while she was travelling to Japan.
She said that she had asked the officials what the problem was, and they told her that Arunachal Pradesh was “not part of India.” She then claimed that the officials laughed at her and told her she should apply for a Chinese passport because, according to them, she was “Chinese, not Indian.”
A deeply upsetting 18-hour ordeal
Prema, who has been living in the UK for about 14 years, was flying from London to Japan with a transit stop in Shanghai. She says an immigration officer pulled her out of the queue and told her that her visa could not be accepted and that her passport was not valid. When she tried to ask why, she says the officials mocked her and repeated that Arunachal was part of China. She also says airline staff and other immigration officers pointed at her documents, said “Arunachal,” and laughed, which she found deeply insulting.
She says she could not contact her family for hours during the ordeal. She added that she had travelled through Shanghai before and never faced this problem.
Prema says she contacted the Indian embassies in Shanghai and Beijing, and within an hour, Indian officials reached the airport. They brought her food, spoke to the authorities, and helped her leave China. She described the experience as an exhausting 18-hour ordeal but said she was relieved to finally get out.