An Arunachal Pradesh resident has alleged that she was detained for over 18 hours at Shanghai Pudong International Airport on November 21 after Chinese immigration officials declared her Indian passport “invalid” because her birthplace is Arunachal Pradesh.
China claims Arunachal Pradesh as its territory and calls it Zangnan. India strongly refutes such claims.
Prema Wangjom Thongdok, currently based in the UK, made the allegation in a post on X on Sunday, tagging the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Union minister Kiren Rijiju and Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Pema Khandu.
Sources said on Monday night that a “strong demarche” had been issued to the Chinese side, in Beijing and in Delhi, on the same day the incident took place”, stressing that the passenger had been detained on “ludicrous” grounds.
Arunachal Pradesh is indisputably an Indian territory and its residents are perfectly entitled to hold and travel with Indian passports, the sources said, adding, “our consulate in Shanghai also took up the matter locally and extended fullest assistance to the stranded passenger”.
It has also been highlighted that the actions of the Chinese authorities are “in contravention of the Chicago and Montreal Conventions relating to civil aviation”.
Posting under the user name Pem Wang Thongdok, the woman wrote: “ …I was held at Shanghai airport for over 18 hrs on 21st Nov, 2025 on claims by China immigration & @chinaeasternair. They called my Indian passport invalid as my birthplace is Arunachal Pradesh which they claimed is Chinese territory.”
Prema was travelling to Japan on vacation with a three-hour layover in Shanghai. Her passport shows she hails from Rupa in West Kameng district, and that she was born in October 1989.
Though she could not be contacted, Prema told India Today TV that the detention was “traumatic”, claiming immigration personnel laughed among themselves and kept insisting that her passport was “invalid” because “Arunachal is part of China”. She said the only responses to her queries were that “Arunachal is part of China” and her passport was “invalid”.
She further claimed that despite having a “valid visa”, she was not allowed to board the connecting flight to Japan and was not allowed to buy food. She said she was able to fly out only after the Indian consulate in Shanghai intervened.
Prema has lived in the UK for 14 years and works as an accounts professional.
Currently in Bangkok, she said she had faced no issues when she last transited through Shanghai in 2024. According to the report, she has also written to the Prime Minister urging that the matter be taken up with Beijing because what she underwent amounted to a “direct insult to India’s sovereignty”.
The episode has once again put the spotlight on the difficulties people from Arunachal face while travelling to China.
The issue adds to the long-running controversy over stapled visas — an unstamped slip of paper the Chinese side issues to Indian citizens from Arunachal Pradesh on the grounds that the Himalayan state is part of “South Tibet”.