By IANS,
Beijing : China confirmed Thursday that a group of Indian nationals has been detained on smuggling charges.
“Chinese police detained some Indians suspected of smuggling,” foreign ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu told a press briefing Thursday.
Jiang made the comment when asked to confirm whether the police in south China’s Shenzhen city have detained 21 Indian diamond traders, Xinhua news agency reported.
“The Indian embassy in China has dispatched officials to see them,” Jiang said, without giving the number of detainees or their identities.
Saying the case was being considered, Jiang said she believed the legitimate rights of those involved would be protected.
Indian diplomats Wednesday got consular access to the detained Indians in Shenzhen.
An official from the Indian embassy in Beijing and another from the Indian consulate in Shenzhen met each of the detainees individually.
The officials sought information about the circumstances under which they were held, official sources said in New Delhi.
The group was detained by the Anti-Smuggling Bureau Jan 8 in Shenzhen and the men were charged with illegally bringing in diamonds from Hong Kong to Shenzhen.
The Shenzhen incident has elicited protests from diamond traders in India, who have an important presence at the Shanghai Diamond Exchange.
The arrests of the Indian diamond workers came a day after three Chinese engineers were arrested in Chhattisgarh for a chimney crash at the Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd (BALCO) plant in Korba in India’s Chhattisgarh state, which killed 41 workers in September last year.