The Chinese are playing mind games. And New Delhi isn't amused. After refusing to issue
stamped visas to residents of Jammu and Kashmir to make the point that the state was still a
"disputed" territory, Chinese authorities have issued such a visa to former Jammu University
vice chancellor Amitabh Mattoo.
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To most Kashmiris, China issues visas on a separate sheet of paper, which is stapled to
their passports. India refuses to recognise these as legitimate visas, and has stopped
several Kashmiris with such visas at the airport, preventing them from boarding their
flights. Professor Shakeel Ahmad Romshoo of Kashmir University was one of them. But Mattoo
had no such problems.
The Jawaharlal Nehru University professor said his visa was stamped on his passport issued
to him in Kashmir. He did go to Beijing. "I had to attend an international conference on
nuclear disarmament," he told Hindustan Times. What kind of visa then will Mirwaiz Omar
Farooq get? The separatist leader, who has recently been harping on a role for Beijing in
Kashmir, was invited by an NGO there to deliver a lecture. But Foreign minister SM Krishna
said the Mirwaiz could go only if he had a valid visa.
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