DHARAMSHALA, December 14: The students of the transit school for new arrivals from Tibet yesterday marched on foot from the school near Khanyara to the Tsuglakhang temple in solidarity with the Tibetans inside Tibet, where 124 Tibetans have immolated since 2009.
Around 250 students passed through Kotwali Bazaar, the Central Tibetan Administration premises, McLoed Ganj covering about 8 kilometres to finally gather for a modest function in front of the Martyrs Memorial near Tsuglakhang here.
The students wore black masks, carried pictures of self immolators and were chained to each other by a rope.
The students were demanding that the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama be invited to Tibet and the reunion of Tibetans on both sides of the border in a free Tibet.
Their demands also include the release of Panchen Lama, the world’s youngest serving political prisoner.
At the Martyrs’s memorial, several students shed tears as fellow students recited poems dedicated to self immolators. The students sat until the evening saying prayers and then walked with candles for a vigil to conclude their day-long protest activity.
Sherab Gatsel Lobling, as it is called, is a transit school run by the Tibetan exile administration’s department of education. Most adult new arrivals from Tibet are sent to this school where students spend five years studying English and other subjects.
