DRC officials here said they came to know about the "administrative mix-up" only when a local newspaper of Arunachal Pradesh reported about it yesterday.
The office immediately launched a probe and preliminary investigations revealed that the two Chinese nationals from Hong Kong -- Young James John and Wu Chong Shong -- were issued the Protected Area Permit (PAP) when they should have been given the Restricted Area Permit (RAP) as per the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) guidelines, the officials said.
It must have been a case of the officer concerned here "overlooking" the Chinese citizenship of the two and issuing them the PAP, instead of RAP, without taking prior permission from the MHA, the officials said.
"We are conducting an investigation into the case and will send our report to the Arunachal Pradesh government which will submit it to the MHA," they said.
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nationals had visited Bomdila and a copy of their PAP was found from a hotel there.
But, the officials did not immediately know if they visited strategically important Tawang and West Kameng which are out of bounds for Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Chinese citizens.
These places are of security concern for India as China claims Tawang as its territory.
The Arunachal Pradesh daily had reported that "taking serious cognizance over illegal issuance of PAP to Chinese nationals, Arunachal Pradesh Tour Operators Association (ATOA) has lodged a complaint against the then DRC DJ Borah at Itanagar police station, alleging violation of the PAP Act".
"It (ATOA) demanded the government to modify and issue notification that PAP should be allowed with sponsorship of local registered tour operators," it added.