By KUNA
Tokyo : The number of people who have turned themselves in to police exceeded 280 for involvement in the riots in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, raising the total number of surrenders in and near Tibet to 661, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.
Lhasa prosecutors have so far issued arrest warrants for 29 people alleged to have been involved in the riots on March 14, while a list of 53 people wanted in connection with the riots has been published by the city’s public security bureau.
Separately, a total of 381 people involved in the riots in Aba county in the neighboring Tibetan-inhabited areas in Sichuan Province, northwest China, have also surrendered themselves to the police as of Monday.
The unrest in Lhasa has resulted in deaths of at least 19 people, and 382 have been injured, Xinhua said, adding that damage is estimated at more than CNY 244 million (USD 34.4 million). But Tibet’s India-based government-in-exile said at least 100 people died in the violence.
China has repeatedly condemned the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama’s role in the unrest, but the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who lives in India, denies being behind the riots.
The March 14 riots were the largest anti-government demonstrations in Lhasa in nearly 20 years. The protests began March 10 when hundreds of monks staged a rare demonstration on the 49th anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising crushed by the Chinese army. The Dalai Lama, now 72, subsequently fled into exile in northern India.