New Delhi: India has cancelled the tourist visa issued to a dissident Chinese Uyghur activist based in Germany to attend the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) in Dharamsala.


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According to DNA, the government's decision aims at ensuring President Pranab Mukherjee's visit to Beijing next month does not get rattled.


Uyghur leader Dolkun Isa has voiced disappointment at the cancellation.


 


“President Mukherjee's visit to China in May is seen as a signal continuing high-level engagement with Beijing after meeting between two foreign ministers and trips by defence minister and NSA amid Delhi's growing ties with the US that would get further momentum with the PM's trip to Washington in June. Therefore, at the highest level, it was decided to keep Beijing engaged rather rattling it,” reported the daily.


The Union Home Ministry cancelled the tourist visa as is not a valid travel document to attend a conference, sources said.


 


"We have cancelled the visa given to Dolkun Isa," a Home Ministry spokesperson confirmed on Monday.


The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) is scheduled from April 28 to May 1 in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh.


It is being organised by the US-based Initiatives for China.


Voicing his disappointment at cancellation, Isa said that Indian authorities had granted him a tourist e-visa, "but it was cancelled after my visit was widely reported in the Indian press".


 


He said the Indian authorities cancelled the tourist visa on April 23.


The invite to the dissident Uyghur activist was bound to have rankled China.


Last week, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met with her Chinese counterpart Wang Li in Moscow on the sidelines of the Russia, India, China trilateral, while National Security Advisor Ajit Doval was in Beijing to meet with State Councillor Yang Jiechi, special representative on the Chinese side for the 19th Special Representatives' Meeting on the China-India Boundary Question.


India has raised with China its disappointment over Beijing blocking the move in the UN to ban Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Masood Azhar, the mastermind of the Pathankot attack.


 


China, a close friend of Pakistan, had said there were not enough grounds to ban Azhar.


 


The move to give Isa a visa to attend the Uyghur conference was seen as a tit-for-tat move by India.