![Professor Nitasha Kaul [Image source: X]](https://img.theweek.in/content/dam/week/news/india/images/2024/2/26/nitasha-kaul.jpg "Professor Nitasha Kaul [Image source: X]")
The entry of foreign nationals to India is a sovereign decision, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Thursday, days after UK-based Indian origin professor Nitasha Kaul was denied entry at Bengaluru airport.
"This particular UK national (Kaul) came to India on February 22. As you know, the entry of foreign nationals into our country is a sovereign decision…,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in his weekly media briefing.
Kaul, a Kashmiri Pandit faculty at the University of Westminster, was allegedly deported to the UK from Bengaluru airport where she had landed to attend a conference—Constitution and National Unity Convention-2024 —organised by the Karnataka government on February 24 and 25.
Though there had been no official words on why she was denied entry, reports claimed that Kaul was deported because of her "anti-India, pro-separatist sentiments”.
"I am what authoritarians fear—a thinking woman," Kaul wrote on X.
"Re: all the lies, I am not married to a Pakistani, not a Muslim convert, not a pawn of China, not a puppet of (the) West, not a commie (Communist), not a jihadi, not a Pak sympathiser, not a terrorist supporter, not anti-India, and not part of a gang,” she said.
The incident sparked off a war of words between the BJP and the Congress with Karnataka minister H.C. Mahadevappa terming it a fresh demonstration of how the rights of state governments are being repeatedly trampled by the Centre.
The BJP defended Kaul’s deportation while accusing her of being a “Pakistan sympathiser”.
“Congress party has disgraced the Indian Constitution by inviting a Pakistani sympathiser who wants India's break up. Don't you have any shame left CM Siddaramaiah? Are you trying to challenge the constitution and threaten the unity and integrity of India?,” the BJP Karnataka unit asked in a post on X.
