Norwegian Woman Asked To Leave India After Participating In Citizenship Act Protests

'I was told to leave the country at once, or legal action would be taken,' the Norwegian tourist said.

Updated on: 27 December 2019 12:15 pm

Days after a German student at IIT Madras was asked to leave India for taking part in anti-Citizenship Act protests, a Norwegian woman tourist has met the same fate.

Janne-Mette Johansson said she was asked to leave the country after she was found to have participated in an anti-CAA protest in Kochi early this week. An official said she has violated visa norms.

"Our enquiry found that she has violated visa norms and so she was asked to go back," Anoop Krishnan, Officer in the Foreigners Regional Registration Office was quoted as saying by PTI.

The FRRO, under the Union Home Ministry, had said that it was probing the matter after it came to know through the social media that the Norwegian woman allegedly participated
in the protest against Citizenship Amendment Act on December 23, Janne-Mette Johansson said in a Facebook post that she has been directed by the Bureau of Immigration authorities, who again came to her hotel, to leave the country at once.

"I was told to leave the country at once, or legal action would be taken," she said.

The 71-year-old woman settled in Sweden said when she sought an explanation or something in writing, the authorities informed her that she would not get anything in writing.

She said her friend was arranging a flight ticket to Dubai, from where she would catch a flight back home to Sweden.

"The officer from the Bureau is not leaving me before he can see that I have a flight ticket", she said.

The woman, here on a tourist visa, had come under the scanner of Bureau of Immigration authorities over her participation in an anti-CAA protest in the city on December 23.
Norwegian tourist under immigration authorities scanner in Kochi over suspected participation in anti-CAA stir.

Johansson had reportedly said in a Facebook post that she had participated in the "Peoples Long March" against the CAA.

Earlier this week, Jakob Lindenthal, who was in Chennai on an exchange programme, was asked to leave the country after he had participated in a march against the CAA.

(With PTI Inputs)