Dharamsala, A group of Tibetans, who were shot at by Chinese border guards last month while trekking towards India via the Himalayas, have met their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in Dharamsala and narrated the horror of that incident to him.
Of the 73 people who started out on the trek though the mountains last month, only 41 managed to reach India.
Two teenaged Tibetan girls – Kelsang Nortso, a 17-year-old Buddhist nun, and Dolma Palkyid, 16, were part of the group that wanted to meet the Dalai Lama. But on September 30, tragedy stuck. Chinese troops positioned on the Sino-Nepalese border opened fire on the group, and killed Kelsang, as they reached the Nangpala pass located at a height of 18,753 feet.
“We were best friends. Still, I cannot believe it. I’ve lost everything,” the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) quoted a tearful Dolma, who saved 1,400 dollars for the trip, as saying.
Recounting further details, Tenzin Wangmo, another nun, said: “They were shooting all around. When the shooting was going on, I just prayed to his Highness, the Dalai lama, to kindly save us.” On Kelsang’s death, she softly said: “She asked for help. But the nuns themselves were weak with cold, fatigue and hunger. There was a monk from the group who said, “She is dead. If we don’t run away, we will be finished.”
According to CSM, about half of the group was captured by the Chinese Police. It says the Chinese Foreign Ministery revealed the death of a second victim, a 23-year-old male, in a hospital, days later. The ministry said the man had died of “Oxygen shortage”.
Human rights groups say the Tibetans were unarmed, and the man was a victim of gunshot wounds.
“This has been going on for a long time. But today, China cannot escape it. The bubbles they have created has burst,” CSM quotes Tenzin Norgay of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in India, as saying.
European mountaineers in the area, caught the shootings on camera and released their video on the Internet. The video of what appeared to be the shooting was also aired on Romanian Pro TV.
The video clearly shows a Chinese border guard calmly firing from a mountain ridge on a group of Tibetans as they struggle through the snow to escape from occupied Tibet. Two figures drop to the ground.
“We were planning to go back afterwards, but now, it won’t be possible after the troble in the pass. If we go back to Tibet, the Chinese will definitely arrest us,” says Wangmo.
At least half of the Tibetans making the journey are children whose parents want them to grow up with a strong Tibetan identity. The latest group had Deki Pantso, a seven-year-old girl, who came without parents.
Norgay is sceptical about the future.
“I fear it might be another event, come and gone. Public memory is very short,” he concludes.”
