Chinese Citizen, 49, Arrested In UP For Illegally Entering India

A 49-year-old Chinese citizen was arrested by the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) at the Rupaidiha checkpost on the India-Nepal border in the Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh on Monday after he illegally entered India and was allegedly videographing the border area, SSB officials said.

The arrested Chinese citizen has travelled to Pakistan, and Pakistani, Chinese, and Nepalese currencies were recovered from him, officials said.

Ganga Singh Udavat, the commandant of the 42nd battalion of the SSB, told PTI that the officer who arrested the Chinese national informed him that after entering India from Nepal, he was allegedly videographing a sensitive border area.

He added that the arrested Chinese national was identified as Liu Qunjing, a resident of the Hunan province of China.

He allegedly lacked valid documents to enter India. Three mobile phones were also seized from him, and one of them contained videos of several sensitive locations in Indian territory, officials said.

A map of Nepal was found with him. Everything on the map was written in English, but Qunjing indicated through gestures that he knew neither Hindi nor English. The SSB, the police, and other security agencies interrogated Qunjing with the help of an interpreter. The commandant said that the interrogation revealed that the Chinese national had also visited Pakistan. However, he had a visa for that country.

The commandant said that he is being considered a suspect because of his travels to Pakistan, his entry into India without valid documents, his videography of sensitive locations, and his "lack of knowledge" of English during interrogation despite the recovered map being in English.

Udavat stated that the apprehended Chinese national has been handed over to the police. The police have registered a case under the sections of the Foreigners Act at the Rupaidiha police station and arrested him.

Initial investigations by security agencies revealed that he entered Nepal on November 15 from China on a Nepali tourist visa. After arriving in Nepalgunj (a city in Nepal) on November 22, he illegally entered India through the Rupaidiha border on November 24. 

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