Manu Bankul (Tripura), Jan 17: Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama Wednesday said he was against all forms of severe punishment like death by hanging and criticised the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
“I was a signatory to a general appeal against death by hanging made by the Amnesty International,” the Buddhist spiritual leader told journalists on being asked if he approved the Hussein’s execution last month.
“I am against hanging. You cannot achieve anything by violent means. Everyone needs peace.”
The Dalai Lama was at Manu Bankul, a small town 140 km south of Agartala, the capital of the northeastern Indian state of Tripura.
He earlier addressed nearly 15,000 Buddhists, mostly from the Mog tribe. He also laid the foundation stone of a Buddhist cultural complex.
Tripura, a state of 3.1 million people, has an estimated 1,30,000 Buddhists.
In 1959, the spiritual leader, disguised as a soldier and with a small escort of 80-odd followers reached Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh after nearly three weeks of gruelling trekking on foot and on mule backs. He has been living in the northern Indian town of Dharmsala since then.
Asked by reporters about the search for his successor, he said: “Dalai Lama is not the real issue, but Tibet.”
