India Draws Out from the World University Games as China Denies Stamped Visas to Arunachal Athletes

China has for long avoided providing stamped visas to athletes from Arunachal Pradesh owing to territorial issues, giving the competitors stapled visas instead.

Written by: Arjita Gupta

Edited by: Krutarth Ghosalkar

Last Updated: 2023-07-28 09:25:23

Arunachal Pradesh is a part of India, yet citizens from here are often denied stamped visas by China because of the ongoing territorial issue. China issued stapled visas to show their protest, and this time, the incident occurred with three athletes, prompting India to withdraw its team for martial art (wushu) from World University Games. The competition is to happen in Chengdu from Friday. The decision was taken within hours when New Delhi airport authorities stopped 5 athletes, their coach (Raghvendra Singh), and 2 support staff just a few minutes prior to departure at the boarding gate.

The coach said that it was Thursday after midnight that the immigration officials at the gate along with a CISF personnel stopped their contingent from boarding. And they did not serve any reason for their actions, claiming that it is their government’s instructions that they are following. The flight was scheduled at 1:05 AM for take-off on Friday. The spokesperson, Arindram Bagchi of the Ministry of External Affairs said that the decision by Chinese officials is unacceptable and that India has all the rights to respond to such treatment.

Bagchi said that they have a long-standing relationship with China, and their consistent position should mean no differential treatment or discrimination is shown to anyone based on ethnicity and domicile in the visa system for citizens of India with valid Indian passports. He continued to say that they have urged a strong protest regarding the matter for an international sporting competition with their Chinese counterparts. An anonymous official from the Wushu Federation of India said that the government decided to not send anyone to the game.

This was because of China’s discriminatory action because while the contingent had valid documents for travel, they were still denied boarding the flight. The athletes as per the federation officials, had applied on 16 July for the visas. All the applications from the team were processed but not of Mepung Lamgu, Onilu Tega, and Nyeman Wangsu, from Arunachal. After resubmitting the application on Tuesday, the athletes received stapled visas on Wednesday.

The Indian government then took a decision on Thursday that they will not participate in the University Games for Wushu competition. In 2011, China refused stamped visas to five Karatekas and other officials belonging to Arunachal. Rather they were issued stapled visas for the Quanzhou’s competition. The same happened in 2016 with two archers before the Youth World Championships. Here the manager from Arunachal Pradesh for the Indian Badminton team was denied the stamped visa.