According to Zee Media, Indian diplomatic missions have been keeping close tabs on ‘anti-India activities’ of some overseas Indians.
Zee Media has quoted ‘highly placed sources’ as saying that India has revoked long-term visas of some of the Indian-origin foreign nationals and also cancelled OCI cards of those who were allegedly involved anti-India activities.
According to these ‘sources’, “diplomatic missions are keeping an eye on Indian-origin students who get involved in abusive protests outside the embassies and high commissions situated in various foreign countries.”, Zee Media reported on Tuesday.
According to this report, the sources confirmed that in the event such people travel to India, they will be expatriated from the airport.
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This follows the news published in The Tribune that Indian-American billionaire Darshan Singh Dhaliwal, who has been helping the cause of farmers at the Singhu border, was not allowed to land in New Delhi on Saturday evening. Dhaliwal, who had flown in from Chicago, was allegedly told at the Delhi airport he would not be allowed to enter India, despite carrying a valid visa.
In 2019, India revoked the OCI status of author and journalist Aatish Taseer, a staunch critic of the Modi government.
In 2018, Australian journalist of Indian origin, Amruta Slee was denied visa by the Indian government. In an article published by ABC, Ms Slee wrote, “We never got our visas. We haven’t had an official explanation. We did receive some strange emails: requests to send a list of who we would talk to and offers to have someone accompany us around Delhi. There are troubling questions about what this means for Australian journalism. But that’s not all that’s at stake.”
However the Consulate General of India, Sydney tweeted in a response to Ms Slee’s article, “Delay in issuing visas to ABC news team has nothing to do with the issues mentioned in this article. ABC news journalists violated Indian visa rules recently by engaging in activities which were not declared at the time of applying their visas.”
We have approached Indian High Commission in Australia for a comment and their response is awaited.
