‘Ex-Chinese Soldier’, Residing In India For Over 6 Decades, Faces Deportation
Vishnu, who shared the SMS with this newspaper, said his father could not apply for a long-term visa because of India-Pakistans.
Bhopal: A Chinese national, who has been living in a village in Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat district for over six decades after completing his six-year-jail term as a ‘Chinese spy’ in various Indian jails, is facing deportation for overstaying his visa.
Wang Qi, 85, who married an Indian and settled down in Tirodi in Balaghat district after his release in 1969-70, has been asked by the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) either to regularise his stay in India or leave the country since his visa extension has expired on May 4, 2025. An SMS to that effect was received by Wang’s son Vishnu.
Vishnu, who shared the SMS with this newspaper, said his father could not apply for a long-term visa because of India-Pakistans.
Wang had inadvertently intruded into India on January 3, 1963, after the Indo-China war of a year prior, and was captured by Indian soldiers. He was convicted by a court as a Chinese spy and sentenced to six years of imprisonment, according to Vishnu.
“My father served his jail term in prisons in Assam, Delhi, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Jabalpur, and finally in Balaghat. He completed his jail term when he was in the Balaghat jail and hence, settled down in Tirodi village in Balaghat district,” Vishnu told this newspaper on Tuesday.
Wang had then married a local resident and the couple have two sons and two daughters.
After a nearly 47-year-long battle with both India and Chinese governments to get his passport honoured, Wang visited his home in Xiaozhainan in Shaanxi province on February 10, 2017.
He returned to India after three months and has since made two short visits to his home town in 2018 and 2023.
“We have to renew my father’s visa every four months which costs `15,000 each time. We cannot afford this so money. We have urged the authorities concerned to issue my father either a multiple entry visa or a long-term visa for five to 10 years to ensure that he will visit his home town in China and also spend time with his family in Tirodi,” Vishnu said.