New Delhi, June 24 -- After the external affairs ministry on Wednesday said that a passport is just a travel document, not a document of citizenship, social media users were in a frenzy, questioning whether non-citizens could also obtain an Indian passport.

"A passport is issued after a lot of due diligence, and it is based on documents from several government agencies," a MEA official said.

The passport is the latest in a list of documents that do not serve as conclusive proof of citizenship and are merely documents of identity, including the Aadhaar card and the voter identity card, according to the government.

Veteran writer Javed Akhtar reacted to MEA's "passport not proof of citizenship" and asked if the government was issuing Ind...