Metropolis Desk-
Anurag Thakur, the sports minister for India, criticized China on Sunday for its discriminating policy after three Indian athletes were sent away from the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou.
The largest sporting event on the continent, the Asian Games, is held every four years. The current edition began on Saturday after being postponed owing to the COVID-19 pandemic last year when it was originally scheduled to take place.
While the rest of their 10-member squad managed to travel as scheduled, three female martial artists from the disputed northeastern province of Arunachal Pradesh, which China primarily views as South Tibet, were unable to attend the Asian Games.
“I’m not in China, as you can see. With my teammates, I am in Coimbatore,” Thakur told media on Sunday in the southern Indian city.
“This discriminatory approach of a country, which is against the Olympic Charter, is not acceptable at all,” he declared. “I have postponed my trip to China because they have refused to allow the athletes from Arunachal Pradesh to compete in the Asian Games,” she said.
Unmarked 3,800 km of shared border between China and India has long been a point of contention between the two Asian superpowers. When at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed in hand-to-hand combat in the Galwan district of the Ladakh region in 2020, tensions grew. Since 1967, the incident has been the worst border altercation.
Just last month, India strongly protested China over a newly released map that depicted Arunachal Pradesh as a part of its recognized territory, which Beijing refers to as South Tibet.
Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, stated on Friday that “China welcomes athletes from all countries” to participate in the Asian Games, but Beijing has never recognized Arunachal Pradesh since the southern Tibetan region is “Chinese territory.”
The remaining Indian athletes competing at this year’s games received Asian Games badges that also function as visas for entry into China, in contrast to the three athletes who purportedly received visas attached to their passports. The same athletes were issued comparable visas, therefore they were unable to compete at the World University Games in Chengdu, China, in July.
The Chinese government discriminated against some Indian athletes from the state of Arunachal Pradesh by denying them accreditation and entry to the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, according to a statement from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.
India has also expressed its severe disapproval of China “against China’s deliberate and selective obstruction of some of our sportspersons,” the ministry stated.
“Arunachal Pradesh has always been, and always will be, a vital and inalienable component of India.”
Source- Arab News
