China, India lock horns over Kashmir

Indian authorities have lodged official protests with Beijing over a new practice of issuing special Chinese visas for residents of Indian-administrated Kashmir.

"We have conveyed our well-justified concern to the Chinese government," India's foreign ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said Friday.

"It is our considered view and position that there should be no discrimination against visa applicants of Indian nationality on the grounds of domicile or ethnicity," the AFP news agency quoted Prakash as saying.

The protests come as in recent months Kashmiris applying to the Chinese embassy in New Delhi have received visas issued on separate papers and not on passports.

Chinese officials have offered no explanation for the special visas.

The action is seen by the authorities in New Delhi as an attempt by China to question status of Jammu and Kashmir as part of India.

Kashmir has been the subject of a bitter territorial dispute between India and Pakistan since they secured independence from Britain in 1947.

Kashmir, currently divided between the South Asian rivals by a Line of Control, had triggered two full-scale wars.

China is also a party to the dispute in that it lays claim to a slice of Indian-run Kashmir.

The Chinese embassy has also issued similar visas for those hailing from Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing says is a disputed territory.

Over much of the last 40 years, China has been claiming Arunachal Pradesh as its own territory.

Beijing army and New Delhi forces fought a brief but bloody war over their Himalayan border in 1962.