Despite strict instructions to restrict the entry of people from certain countries, two Chinese ‘tourists’ from Hong Kong recently visited India’s frontier State of Arunachal Pradesh without required documents specified by the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
The incident, which is believed to have happened due to some administrative goof-up, came to the fore only on Wednesday when copies of the Protected
Area Permit (PAP) issued to the two Chinese tourists—Young James John and
Wu Chong Shong—were recovered at a hotel in Bomdila town in West Kameng district in the frontier State, bound by China, Myanmar and Bhutan.
While the other foreign nationals require PAP to enter Arunachal Pradesh, people from China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar require Restricted Area Permit (RAP)—a document issued by the Union MHA to visit the State.
The incident came to the fore at a time when India and China are engaged in war
of words over the proposed visit of the 14th Dalai lama on an invitation from Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu in March next year.
“We are looking into the matter. It seems there is some kind of goof-up. The two Chinese nationals were issued PAP instead of RAP by the then Deputy Resident Commissioner (DRC), Government of Arunachal Pradesh at Guwahati on August 30 this year,” said a senior officer at the DRC office.
“The applications of the two Chinese nationals for PAP were recommended to our office by the Resident Tourism Officer of Arunachal Pradesh at Guwahati. The DRC office might have overlooked the issue of their citizenship—Chinese and issued the PAP without much verification. We are supposed to issue RAP and not PAP to people of five countries—Pakistan, China, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar to enter Arunachal Pradesh,” the officer said.
“I am sending a report to the State Government in this regard detailing about the ‘case of overlooking’ soon,” said the officer.
The officer confirmed that the two Chinese ‘tourists’ were given PAPs to visit Tawang, West Kameng and lower Subansiri districts for 30 days from September 12 for ‘tourism purposes’.
The alleged goof-up has raised concerns in different sections in the frontier State as Tawang and West Kameng districts are kind of militarised zones in Arunachal Pradesh and assume strategic importance considering India’s national security.
It was only in May last year that the MHA, to streamline and boost inflow of foreign tourists to Arunachal Pradesh, delegated the powers to the competent authority such as the Secretary Tourism, Government of Arunachal Pradesh, the Residential Commissioner at Delhi and the DRC at Kolkata Guwahati, empowering them to issue PAP to normal foreign tourists to enter Arunachal Pradesh.
It may be mentioned here that in its guideline for PAP order 1958 Section 3(II), the MHA clearly states, that citizens of Afghanistan, China and Pakistan and foreign nationals of Pakistani origin shall not be issued a special permit without the prior approval of the MHA.
It also instructed that the issuing authority should exercise utmost caution and thoroughly check the records, negative lists and other restrictive circular etc before granting a special permit to a foreigner.