A Chinese Prisoner Of War In MP Is Waiting For Permit To Go Home Since The Last Fifty Years

Wang Qi, a septuagenarian, has been seeking permission from New Delhi as well as Beijing to allow him to travel to China to meet his three brothers and sisters.

Wang Qi was recruited in Chinese Army in 1960 and fought against India in 1962. He was nabbed by Indian Red Cross Society along India’s eastern frontier in 1963. He was handed over to Indian Army in Assam. He spent six years in jails across India including, Rajasthan, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. He was released in March 1969 and was taken to a rehabilitation centre in Balaghat district of Tirodi by the Madhya Pradesh police.

According to Hindustan Times, Qi told them that he was the most loved child of his mother who passed away in 2006 and three years later he met his nephew in New Delhi. The meeting ignited his hopes to meet his kith and kins in China again. He has been trying to get permission to travel to China since 2014 which seems to be a pipedream. He also said that he heard about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj helping foreign nationals stuck in India to return to their homeland.

He folded his hands and requested both the leaders to help him return to his siblings in China.

He was issued a Chinese passport by the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi in 2013. While applying for permission to travel to China in 2014, he promised to come back to India to stay with his Indian wife and other members of the family, but he couldn’t travel to his birthplace. He has been lost in “official procedures” in New Delhi.

He has not been given Indian citizenship. Though his family members are Indians. He has been asked to wait for permission patiently. Chinese authorities told him that even though India might grant permission to travel to China provided that he is ready to stay back there and not to return to India.

Since he has no documents pertaining to his stay in India from 1963 to 2013, he has been denied travel permission, as per Makrand Deuskar and SP Amit Sanghi, inspector general (intelligence) at police headquarters (Bhopal).

Indian-Sino War took place in 1962 between India and China. The main pretext of the war was a disputed Himalayan border.