Refugees Say Tibet Is In Turmoil

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31330, 29 March 1967, Page 13

Refugees Say Tibet Is In Turmoil

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

NEW DELHI, March 28.

Tibetan refugees in India have reported that Tibet is in turmoil and its capital, Lhasa, is the scene of mass killings caused by fighting between opposing Chinese factions.

The Press Trust of India, quoting refugee sources, said one faction had put up posters praising Chairman Mao Tsetung and the other had torn them down and displayed antiMao posters. The Army had intervened and many people had been killed or arrested. They included five high-ranking Chinese officials who were arrested and later killed. The refugees said a large number of people had been arrested and others had committed suicide to escape torture. In Parliament, the External Affairs Minister, Mr Mohammedan Curri Chagla said yes-

terday authentic reports received by the Government showed that conditions in Tibet were “pretty gruesome” and that the ancient culture of the people there was being destroyed and their religion interfered with. The Government of India was honied by these reports, he said. A former instructor of the Dalai Lama had committed suicide by hanging, the sources said.

Hunger was widespread in Lhasa, and elsewhere in Tibet All religious images had been destroyed and monasteries turned into military barracks for soldiers.