Maneka Gandhi (File photo | ENS) 
India

Maneka Gandhi tweets to Sushma Swaraj: Make visa applicants declare criminal record if any

Maneka suggested that visa applicants should be required to make a declaration of their criminal record in their country, if any.

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A day after the arrest of an American national in Hyderabad for sharing child sexual abuse material online, Minister of Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi has tweeted tagging External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj asking that our visa rules be revised so that applicants are required to make a declaration of their criminal record in their country, if any.

The Hyderabad police had on Tuesday arrested an American national, John Kirk Jones, for downloading and uploading child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), known colloquially as child pornography.

The 42-year old American presently lives in Hyderabad where he works for an MNC law firm. The police team that nabbed him had recovered 29,288 items of CSAM, 490 GigaTribe (a file-sharing site) profiles and 24 Twitter profiles from which he allegedly shared such materials.

Maneka Gandhi tweeted from her official Twitter handle saying the Indian visa formats need to be revised to include declaration of criminal record so that foreign nationals with criminal record of child abuse don't enter India.

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