By IANS,
New Delhi : An IANS journalist with a passport issued in Srinagar has got a normal Chinese visa in a sign that Beijing may have relaxed the practice of issuing stapled visas to people from the state.
Special Correspondent Sarwar Kashani is among the journalists travelling with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to China on a four-day visit beginning Tuesday.
There are three other Kashmir-born journalists in the media delegation who too have got normal visas but they hold passports issued in New Delhi.
Although the prime minister will be in China’s Sanya city for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit, the gesture may be an attempt to create a conducive atmosphere when Manmohan Singh meets President Hu Jintao.
This is the first time the Chinese embassy in New Delhi has given a non-stapled visa to a Kashmiri since 2008 when it started issuing visa on a separate sheet of paper that would be stapled to the passport.
This was apparently being done to show that Beijing sees Jammu and Kashmir as a disputed state and its residents as non-Indian citizens.
The issue had caused irritation in bilateral relations with New Delhi suspending high-level military exchanges with Beijing after a senior army officer posted in Jammu and Kashmir was denied normal visa.
The matter came up for discussion when Manmohan Singh met his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao here in December 2010. China had assured India then that it would look into the matter.
Manmohan Singh also raised the issue with President Hu in Vietnam in October last year.