Debbie Abrahams, British MP who chairs a parliamentary group focused on Kashmir, was unable to clear customs after her valid Indian visa was rejected.
New Delhi| Indian officials denied a British lawmaker entry on Monday after she landed at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, according to an accompanying aide.
Debbie Abrahams, a Labour Party Member of Parliament who chairs a parliamentary group focused on Kashmir, was unable to clear customs after her valid Indian visa was rejected, the aide, Harpreet Upal, told The Associated Press.
Abrahams and Upal arrived at the airport on an Emirates flight from Dubai at 9 am.
Upal said the immigration officials did not cite any reason for denying Abrahams entry and revoking her visa, a copy of which, valid until October 2020, was shared with the AP.
A spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs did not immediately comment.
Abrahams has been a member of Parliament since 2011 and was on a two-day personal trip to India, she said in a statement.
“Along with everyone else, I presented myself at the immigration desk with my documents including my e-visa, had my photograph taken and then the official looked at his screen and started shaking his head. Then he told me my visa was rejected, took my passport and disappeared for about 10 minutes. When he came back he was very rude and aggressive, shouting at me to ‘come with me’,” said the British MP in a statement.
“I told him not to speak to me like that and was then taken to a cordoned-off area marked as a Deportee Cell. He then ordered me to sit down and I refused. I didn’t know what they might do or where else they may take me, so I wanted people to see me.”
The politician said she rang a relative she was supposed to stay with, and he called the British High Commission to try and find out what was going on.
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“I tried to establish why the visa had been revoked and if I could get a ‘visa on arrival’ but no one seemed to know,” she said in the statement.
“Even the person who seemed to be in charge said he didn’t know and was really sorry about what had happened. So now I am just waiting to be deported … unless the Indian Government has a change of heart. I’m prepared to let the fact that I’ve been treated like a criminal go, and I hope they will let me visit my family and friends.”
Abrahams has been a blunt critic of the Indian government’s move last August stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its semi-autonomy and bifurcating the state into two Union Territories.
On her Twitter page, Ms Abrahams has posted a letter she apparently wrote on August 5 last year, the day the government ended special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and enforced severe restrictions to avoid any violent protests.
As chair of Kashmir APPG, I have written to India’s High Commissioner to the UK to express grave concerns regarding the Indian Government’s proposed removal of Article 370 from their constitution, which grants special status to Indian-controlled #Kashmir. pic.twitter.com/YdLJ7yUHL4
— Debbie Abrahams MP (@Debbie_abrahams) August 5, 2019
Ms Abrahams’ timeline has several posts critical of the Kashmir decision.
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