...

Over 30 Tibetans held in India to prevent Olympic run disruption

Other News Materials 21 June 2008 12:52 (UTC +04:00)

More than 30 Tibetans have been detained in India's northern Himachal Pradesh state to prevent them from crossing the international border into China to disrupt the Olympics torch run in Tibet, a news report said Saturday.

During the past few days, the police have rounded up 30 Tibetans from the Shimla and Kinnaur districts near the border, the states police chief Ashwini Kumar told the IANS news agency.

Most of the Tibetans who were held were without valid documents or special permits required for entering the prohibited border areas, reported dpa.

During questioning, the Tibetans allegedly confessed to the police that they wanted to enter Tibet to disrupt the Olympic torch run.

The Olympic torch was paraded through Lhasa, the capital of China's Tibet region, under tight security and surveillance on Saturday.

Kumar said the police had made arrangements to ensure that no Tibetans could cross the border or hold demonstrations near it.

India is home to not only to the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama but also to about 100,000 Tibetan refugees, estimated to be the largest concentration of Tibetans outside Tibet.

Tibetan refugee groups in India have been holding protests during the run-up to the Beijing Olympics saying they want to use the occasion to draw international attention to China's human rights violations in Tibet.

Latest

Latest