‘Lost’ Chinese Who Crossed Over to India Goes Home After 54 Years

Wang Qi, now 77, was caught for entering the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962.

Wang Qi with his family. (Photo: PTI)

Wang Qi, a Chinese prisoner of war who settled in Madhya Pradesh's Balaghat district after his release from jail and raised a family after marrying an Indian, is all set to fly to his native country after five decades.

Wang, now 77, was caught for entering the Indian territory shortly after the Sino-India War of 1962. He was later released from jail.

Wang with his wife Sushila, and their son Vishnu and two other family members will be flying to China.

Bharat Yadav, collector, Balaghat

He said Wang and his four family members got visa on Friday, and they might fly to China on Saturday. This has happened due to the help they received from the Ministry of Home and External Affairs.

Home After Over 5 Decades

After their arrival, they would travel to his native place in Shaanxi Province to meet Wang's relatives, Chinese officials said. The development has come within a week after a delegation from the Chinese Embassy met Wang who had been wanting to visit his country.

Three officials from the Chinese Embassy in India met my father and talked to him for more than one hour. They assured him all possible help to visit China.

Vishnu, Wang Qi’s son on 4 February

"My father joined the Chinese Army in 1960 and he entered India through the eastern frontier after losing his way in the darkness one night," son Vishnu said.

He landed in Assam where an Indian Red Cross team handed him over to the Indian Army on 1 January 1963.

"My father spent six years in prisons in Assam, Ajmer, Delhi before the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered his release in March 1969," Vishnu said.

Wang Qi to Raj Bahadur

Wang started working as a watchman with a mill and soon his colleagues named him Raj Bahadur, apparently due to his Nepali features, Vishnu said.

But little did he know that the enemy nation against whom he had waged a war would become his home, where he would raise a family. Wang married Sushila in 1975, but his desire to live a comfortable life was short-lived.

"Soon after my father married my mother, the Indian government stopped his monthly pension of Rs 100," Vishnu, who works with a small business unit as an accountant said.

"My father faced a lot of hardships, wanting to go to China. He tried very hard and even entered into correspondence with the then Prime Ministers, but in vain," he said.

(With PTI inputs)