Patna: TV channels in Bihar were abuzz with reports of a mysterious Chinese woman allegedly spying on the Dalai Lama on his visit to Bodh Gaya after a gap of two years, but the story turned out to be something else in the end.
As soon as the news of the police releasing a sketch of a woman named Song Xiaolan along with her passport and visa numbers came to the headlines on news channels and they felt that something “big was about to happen”. However, after a detailed investigation, the police found that it was a case of a woman who was knowingly staying in the country even after her visa had expired.
Additional Director General of Police (Headquarters) JS Gangwar said, “He has been given the notice to leave India after a visa violation. We are going to hand him over to the concerned authorities for extradition. A subsequent statement by the Gaya police made it very clear that Song was never suspected of espionage.
However, she is also not a regular traveler from abroad and had come to India for worldly reasons. Police said that despite being born in an atheist country, this woman came closer to spirituality and came to the land of Buddha in October 2019, forgetting that this world runs on visas.
According to the police, she was not supposed to stay for more than three months but she has been living for more than three years. In between, she also went to Nepal for a short time in search of spirituality where she befriended a local woman and returned to India with her. Both women were picked up by the police from a guest house in Bodh Gaya.
Both confessed to having settled in Mcleodganj in Himachal Pradesh’s Dharamshala district, which is often referred to as “mini Tibet”. The two reached Bodh Gaya on December 22 when the Dalai Lama was also to attend a program but by then the State Department had informed the police that Xiaolan was persona non grata.
