Tibetans continue their protests in Dharamsala

Dharamsala/ New Delhi, Mar 28 : Tibetans in Dharamsala continued their hunger strike in shifts on Thursday.

Hundreds of Buddhist monks of the Tse-Chokling Monastery have participated in the indefinite hunger strike, undertaken in chain shifts by batches of activists.

"We are observing hunger strike which symbolize solidarity and supporting the Tibetans in Tibet, who are fighting peacefully against Chinese force," said Tashi, a Buddhist monk.

Meanwhile, police released three Tibetan activists taken into custody in Kangra district on March 13 when they insisted on proceeding on their protest march towards Tibet.

"After spending 14 days in judicial custody, we are now being released. We were asked to file bond, which says that we have to be doing good behavior for one year. We said no to that, so they turned it into a legal case. It's going to be court case, so we have to appear in the court once in a month," said Tenzin Tsondue, a Tibetan activist.

Police had earlier released 98 Tibetan activists.

Meanwhile, former Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal ridiculed Beijing's claim that the Lhasa riots were incited by the Dalai Lama. He said China was finding it difficult to crush the protests in Tibet in the year of the Beijing Olympics. "Timings of the Olympics has been very thoughtfully chosen because China will have difficulty in going out for all out repression," Sibal told a conference in New Delhi.

China's handling of the unrest has been met by mounting international concern, overshadowing the run-up to the Beijing Olympic Games that China wants to be a celebration of its arrival as a world power.

ANI