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'No access to food, couldn't use Google': Arunachal woman narrates 18-hour horror at Shanghai airport
India has lodged a strong protest with Beijing, calling the grounds for detention “ludicrous” and reaffirming that Arunachal is an integral part of the country.
The woman from Arunachal Pradesh who was detained at Shanghai Pudong airport narrated her 18-hour ordeal after Chinese authorities declared her Indian passport “invalid” because it listed Arunachal Pradesh as her place of birth. India has lodged a strong protest with Beijing, calling the grounds for detention “ludicrous” and reaffirming that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of the country.
Prema Wangjom Thongdok, who lives in the United Kingdom and was travelling from London to Japan with a three-hour layover in Shanghai on November 21, said her ordeal began when she was singled out during security checks. “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,” she wrote on X.
Thongdok said immigration officials mocked her, made fun of her, and told her that “Arunachal is not part of India”. “When I tried to question them and ask them what the issue was, they said, ‘Arunachal is not part of India’ and started mocking and laughing and saying things like ‘you should apply for the Chinese passport, you’re Chinese, you’re not Indian,’” she told ANI news agency. She added that airline staff behaved similarly.
The UK-based financial adviser, originally from Rupa in Arunachal Pradesh’s West Kameng district, said she had transited through Shanghai just a year earlier without any problem. This time, she claimed officers confiscated her passport, denied her access to food, and refused to let her board her onward China Eastern Airlines flight to Japan despite a valid Japanese visa. “It was a very humiliating, questionable behaviour from the immigration staff as well as the airline staff,” she said.
She said that after hours of being held without information, she managed to contact friends in the UK and sought help from the Indian consulate in Shanghai. “I called up the Shanghai and Beijing Indian embassies and within an hour, the Indian officials came to the airport, got me some food and spoke through the issues with them and helped me get out of the country. A very long ordeal, 18 hours, but glad that I’m out of there,” she said.
Thongdok said that officials insisted she either fly back to the UK or to India and claimed one officer told her she “should get a Chinese passport, because she is "Chinese”, The Indian Express reported.
She said she was prevented from accessing information online because “there is no Google [in China]”, and was forced to rebook travel only on China Eastern Airlines. She eventually flew out via Thailand and has been working remotely from there since.
Calling the treatment a “direct challenge to India’s sovereignty and deeply distressing to any Indian citizen”, she said she has written to the Ministry of External Affairs seeking that the matter be taken up strongly with China and that compensation be secured for “harassment, distress, and physical and mental suffering” as well as financial losses.
“Despite being in the UK for so many years, I have not given up my Indian passport because I love my country and don’t want to be a foreigner in my own land, though I probably would not have had an experience like this if I had a British passport,” she said.
The Indian consulate in Shanghai “extended fullest assistance” to the stranded passenger, and stressed that Arunachal Pradesh is “indisputably Indian territory and its residents are perfectly entitled to hold and travel with Indian passports”. They added that Chinese actions violated the Chicago and Montreal Conventions on civil aviation and “introduce unnecessary obstructions” at a time when both sides are attempting to restore normalcy.
