By IANS,
New Delhi : About 100 Tibetan activists tried to storm the Chinese embassy Wednesday – a few hours before the Olympics torch reaches here. However, their plan was foiled and 63 of them were detained by the police.
The activists, under the banner of Tibetan Youth Congress, arrived at the embassy at around 10.30 a.m. in two buses.
They waved Tibetan and Indian flags and wore yellow jerseys and headbands with messages like ‘Stop Cultural Genocide’, ‘No Olympics in China’, ‘No Torch Relay in India’ and ‘Free Tibet’.
A large posse of policemen and central paramilitary forces was present around the embassy. A minor scuffle ensued between the security personnel and Tibetans who resisted being detained.
The protestors, who were chanting slogans like “Hu Jintao murdabad” (Down with (Chinese President) Hu Jintao), were taken to a nearby police station.
“We have detained 63 Tibetan activists for staging a protest in the restricted area,” said a police official.
Some Tibetan protestors tired to scale the high walls of the embassy building, but their attempts were foiled.
Police said they had been anticipating a massive protest outside the embassy and deployed a ring of security personnel around the building.
“We will continue our protest in the city and would make every possible attempt to wake the Chinese government from its sleep. We want the entire world to know about the Chinese atrocity in Lhasa,” Dhondup Dorjee, vice president of Tibetan Youth Congress, told IANS.
Dorjee alleged that security officials had hacked their website ‘tibetanyouthcongress.org’ and were monitoring their every movement.
“They have also put our mobile phones on surveillance and teams of intelligence officials are on a lookout for us,” he said.
Security at the Chinese embassy, which has been fortified for almost a month, was intensified with more anti-riot personnel and concertina wires around the periphery of the complex.
After staging a protest outside the sprawling embassy, a group of young Tibetans carried out a car rally around the capital’s diplomatic enclave.
Nearly 10 cars, smeared in white and yellow paint with messages like ‘Free Tibet’, were part of the rally. Activists occupying the small cars were chanting anti-China slogans. However, policemen didn’t allow them to stop near the embassy.
Fearing a repeat of the disturbances that marred the torch relay in London and Paris, commandoes from paramilitary forces and thousands of policemen have been posted along the two-kilometre route from the presidential palace Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate, the World War I monument in the heart of the capital.
Some Tibetans who have been camping here ahead of the Olympic torch relay have reportedly gone missing, “probably to stage surprise attacks”, said intelligence officials.