Two Chinese nationals visit Arunachal Pradesh on wrong permits

Guwahati: Two Chinese nationals have visited Arunachal Pradesh, bordering China, on wrong Protected Area Permits (PAPs), instead of the Restricted Area Permit (RAP), issued by the Deputy Resident Commissioner (DRC) of Arunachal Pradesh office in Guwahati.

DRC officials here said they came to know about the "administrative mix-up" only when a local newspaper of Arunachal Pradesh reported about it yesterday.

The office immediately launched a probe and preliminary investigations revealed that the two Chinese nationals from Hong Kong -- Young James John and Wu Chong Shong -- were issued the Protected Area Permit (PAP) when they should have been given the Restricted Area Permit (RAP) as per the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) guidelines, the officials said.

Stating that citizens of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan require RAP to be issued by the MHA, they said the two Chinese nationals' application for PAP was recommended to the DRC Guwahati office by the Resident Tourism Officer of the Arunachal Pradesh government based on their tourist visa.

It must have been a case of the officer concerned here "overlooking" the Chinese citizenship of the two and issuing them the PAP, instead of RAP, without taking prior permission from the MHA, the officials said.

"We are conducting an investigation into the case and will send our report to the Arunachal Pradesh government which will submit it to the MHA," they said.

Giving details of the permit issued to the two foreign tourists, the officials said that PAP was issued to the two Chinese nationals on August 30 on their applications to visit Tawang, West Kameng and Lower Subansiri districts for 30 days from September 12 to October 11.