(Updated with details)
KATHMANDU, March 1: Metropolitan Police Range Office, Kathmandu on Sunday handed over to the Department of Immigration (DoI) nine Tibetan monks arrested two days ago in Kathmandu. [break]
Officials at DOI said they will hand them over to the UN Office of High Commissioner for Refugees in Kathmandu as the Tibetans do not have any visa or other documents for staying legally in Nepal.
"We have already asked UNHCR to take custody of them," said Section Officer Kali Prasad Parajuli. "We have been handing over to UNCHR all but the legally domiciled Tibetans."
Out of a total of 27 Tibetan monks and nuns arrested on Friday afternoon in Kathmandu, police had released 18 while retaining nine monks in custody. The monks were detained at Metropolitan Police Sector Office, Singh Durbar.
Police had taken the detained monks to the DOI office at Maitighar around 4 p.m.
Officials said UNOHCR could send them to its office in Delhi, India, as it did in similar cases in the past.
A Tibetan who identified himself as Tashi and was trying to secure the release of the arrested Tibetans, said all those arrested hail from a monastery in Solukhumbu district. "They were about to leave for Solukhumbu but were caught by police," he said. "They were not into any protest activities."
Police in Kathmandu have increased their surveillance and also arrested Tibetans here in view of possible protests ahead of the 50th anniversary on March 10 of the uprising in Tibet.
Supporters of the Dalai Lama, who went into exile in India in 1959, have announced that they would commemorate all over the world in March and all through 2009 the anniversary of the uprising against “China´s illegal invasion of their homelands”.
The recent police arrests of Tibetans come in the wake of senior Chinese officials, who visited Nepal recently, exerting pressure on the Nepal government to effectively curb free-Tibet activities on Nepali territory.
Tibetans refugees in Nepal had staged peaceful demonstrations in front of the Chinese embassy and its consular section on a regular basis since March 10, 2008 to protest against the crackdown on Tibetan protestors in Lhasa. They had put off the protests in August, 2008 as police started overnight detention and also handed over many protestors to the immigration office, alleging that they did not have legal documents for remaining in Nepal.
koshraj@myrepublica.com
