Tibetans Returning to Tibet Stopped and Searched/ENG

2012. január 21./CTA/TibetPress

DHARAMSHALA: Thousands of Tibetan devotees returning to Tibet after the Kalachakra initiations are being arbitrarily stopped and searched, reports coming from Tibet says.

Some twelve heavy security checkpoints have been placed from Zhangmu at the Nepal-Tibet border till Lhasa. Extra units of personnel from the Public Security Bureau were posted to stop and search Tibetan devotees returning to Tibet from India through Nepal.

Medicines and religious artifacts brought by the Tibetan devotees from their pilgrimage are being forcefully confiscated. Even rosaries which is carried by almost every Tibetan are being snatched away, a source said.

It is also reported that the Chinese security guards resort to verbal abuse and physical threats when asked about reasons for frisking them without any official warrants.

Around 8000 Tibetans from Tibet had come to India to attend the recently concluded Kalachakra initiations by His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Bodh Gaya.