India denies China had confiscated maps from its pavilion at Shanghai Expo

India Pavilion in Shanghai, China.

India today denied a media report which said that Chinese authorities had, in July, confiscated brochures bearing a map of India from the India Pavilion at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai in July this year.

" I have seen a report in The Times of India, about alleged confiscation of some printed material depicting the Indian map, from the Indian pavilion at Shanghai Expo, by the Chinese authorities," Mr Vishnu Prakash, official spokesperson of the Minstry of External Affairs, said in response to a query on the report.

"There is no factual basis to this report. There has been no interference in the functioning of our pavilion at Shanghai Expo," Mr Prakash added.

The newspaper report had quoted Indian government officials as saying that officers of China's Public Security Bureau (PSB) had arrived unannounced at the pavilion and taken away the maps because they depicted Arunachal Pradesh as a part of India. China claims large parts of the state as part of its territory.

NNN