By KUNA
Tokyo : A total of 381 people involved in the riots in Aba county in the Tibetan-inhabited areas in Sichuan Province, northwest China, have surrendered themselves to the police as of Monday noon, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported Tuesday.
Law enforcement authorities of Aba county issued a notice on March 19, urging those who had taken part in the riots on March 16 to submit themselves within ten days.
“Among those surrendered, most are common people or monks deceived or coerced,” said an official at a village where 40 people gave themselves in on Monday, following the 23 monks who surrendered on Sunday, according to Xinhua.
Riots in the Aba county erupted on the heels of the unrest in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, which broke out on March 14 and has spread to neighboring ethnic Tibetan areas.
Violent mobs, some shouting “Tibet independence” slogans and holding flags of the so-called “Tibetan government-in-exile,” stormed into and attacked government offices, police stations, hospitals, schools and banks, the report said.
Total losses remained unknown yet. Aba county, with a population of 63,000, is about 200 km from Sichuan’s provincial capital of Chengdu.
In Lhasa’s unrest, at least 19 people have been confirmed killed and 382 were injuried, the Chinese government has said.
However, the Tibetan government-in-exile in India on Monday raised its confirmed death toll from the clashes between Chinese authorities and Tibetan protesters to 130, mainly from eastern and northeastern parts of Tibet.
The Chinese government said Sunday that 94 people were also injured in last week’s riot in neighoring Gansu Province, with an economic loss of CNY 230 million (USD 32.6 million). It said the injured were mostly police officers but gave no information on the death toll among the demonstrators.
The riots on March 14 were the largest anti-government demonstrations in Lhasa for 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.
Foreign correspondents have been denied access to Tibet.