New Delhi: In a move that is certain to rile China, India has issued visas to at least four Chinese Uyghur nationals—all of them deemed dissidents and at least one ‘a terrorist’ by Beijing—to meet the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, next week.

The Indian move comes against the immediate backdrop of China putting a ‘technical hold’ on India’s efforts to get Pakistan-based Islamist militant leader Maulana Masood Azhar designated a terrorist by the United Nations (UN) last month.

The Indian government is also said to be upset about Chinese plans to build a $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor announced last April.

The corridor, a network of roads, railways and pipelines, will start in Kashgar in the troubled Chinese Xinjiang province and run through Pakistan-administered Kashmir before ending in Karachi.

India has raised both issues with China, but with seemingly little effect.

New Delhi is wary of the all-weather friendship between China and India’s arch rival Pakistan with which it has fought four wars, three of them over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, that both countries claim in full and administer in parts.

India accuses Pakistan of sheltering Islamist militants like Masood Azhar and New Delhi suspects that the ‘technical hold’ or block put on designating Azhar a terrorist by the UN was done by China at Pakistan’s behest. Azhar’s Jaish-e-Mohammed militant group is blamed for the 2 January attack on the Pathankot airbase in Punjab.

According to Dolkun Isa, chairman of the executive committee of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and the one branded as a ‘terrorist’ by China, “India has issued a visa to four of us."

This was separately confirmed by a person familiar with developments in New Delhi.

Isa, who hails from the restive Chinese Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China, added on the phone from Germany on Thursday that the delegation was travelling to India for a conference which was to be addressed by the Dalai Lama, who is viewed by China as a “violent separatist."

The Tibetan spiritual leader is to receive Isa and other Uyghur leaders in Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile in India.

China has long been suspicious of India granting asylum to the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 following a failed uprising. Many analysts say the India-China war of 1962 was sparked by Chinese anger towards India following the grant of asylum to the Tibetan spiritual leader.

China has protested against the Dalai Lama’s activities in India but New Delhi says that it regards the Tibetan spiritual leader as an honoured guest and does not encourage any ‘political activity’ by the Dalai Lama “that could affect relations" between India and China.

According to Isa, the conference he and others are to attend will start on 28 April.

“But I still have to make up my mind about coming to India," Isa said, adding this was because of an Interpol Red Corner notice against him. A Red Corner notice means an international alert against a person “to seek the location and arrest...with a view to extradition or similar lawful action", according to the Interpol website.

Isa said his caution stemmed from his detention in Seoul in 2009 at the instance of China due to the Red Corner notice. “I was sent back to Germany after three days," he said, adding that he became a German citizen in 2006 after fleeing China in 1997, following repeated prison terms for his alleged ‘activism’.

“India does not consider Uyghurs terrorists," said Kanwal Sibal, former foreign secretary, adding that he “would personally applaud the Indian government for its move" to grant visas to the Uyghur delegation.

“If China views certain Uyghurs as terrorists, then that’s between them and China," he said, pointing out that China had made a similar argument in Masood Azhar’s case. “China is not sensitive to our concerns on terrorism," he said.

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