By IANS
New Delhi : No directive has been issued to Tibetan schools to keep students away from anti-China protests, an official of the Central Tibetan School Administration (CTSA) said here Thursday.
“The CTSA has neither issued any such directive to the school authorities nor has received any such instruction from the (Indian) government,” a top CTSA official, on condition of anonymity, told IANS.
The CTSA is an autonomous body under the ministry of human resource development, and currently runs 72 pre-primary to higher secondary schools with nearly 10,000 students in Tibetan settlements in India.
Ahead of Olympic torch relay, scheduled to arrive in the city April 17, Tibetans in exile and their supporters are gathering to press for Tibet’s freedom.
“A forged letter is in circulation, saying that the CTSA has issued directive to schools to prohibit students from participating in anti-China protests,” the official said.
“The CTSA came to know about the letter only last week, and is now probing the matter. The future course of action will be decided only after the investigation is complete.”
“It was a mischievous attempt to vitiate the atmosphere. The CSTA cannot issue such directive on its own. Only the human resource development ministry is authorised to do so,” the official added.
The CTSA runs two pre-primary and one middle school at Majnu Ka Tilla, a major Tibetan settlement, in north Delhi. The other Tibetan schools are scattered in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Sikkim and Karnataka.
The central government set up CTSA as an autonomous body in 1961 to “establish, manage and assist schools for the education of Tibetan children in India.”