By Tenzin Dharpo
DHARAMSHALA, Jan. 14: A Tibetan camp leader in Doeguling Tibetan settlement in Mungod has committed suicide yesterday, reportedly due to his dissatisfaction with the local Tibetan authority’s support in an election rigging case where he had been manhandled by a Tibetan monk on the Tibetan preliminary elections in October.
Yeshi Jungney, a former soldier in the Special Frontier Force and village leader of camp no.1 (Gyakpon) reportedly committed suicide by hanging around 9 pm to 10 pm yesterday. His body has been taken by the police to the local government hospital for postmortem formalities.
A local resident of Mundgod told Phayul on the condition of anonymity that the deceased had left a suicide note, wherein among other things, he had written about his disappointment towards the lack of support by the local Tibetan authority as well as fellow Tibetans following an incident of scuffle between him and a monk on October 18, 2015. The alleged connection between his death and the Election day scuffle could not be independently verified.
Last October during the preliminary voting day, the deceased, then a staff under the local election commission intervened when a monk approached the ballot box with fifteen ballot papers. A video of the scuffle widely circulated on social media sites and micromesssaing apps.The monk involved in the scuffle hails from Rungpo Khangtsen Losel Ling Monastery.
The Representative of Tibetan Settlement, Phuntsok Tsering, told Phayul that there was a suicide note which the police took. He said he was unaware of the content of the letter other than it was written in colloquial Hindi in English language, a common practice for the Tibetan soldiers in the SFF.
When asked if there was a lack of support from the local authority, he responded, “The deceased approached our office for an official intervention. After much deliberation, a public apology from the monk was prescribed as a punitive measure. The monk wrote an apology letter where the monastery supervisor (changzoe), the disciplinary master (gekoe), his house master (khangtsen gendak) and I signed. The monk was also made to work in the monastery kitchen.”
“After the incident, he (deceased) was never himself; he seemed to have lost his vigor in some ways. He was a man dedicated to the community. He was a doer in every sense of the word. What has happened is really unfortunate that a man loved and respected in the community had to take such a step,” he added.
A prima facie case of suicide by a Tibetan man is ambiguous as of this moment with many crucial factors such as the content of the ‘suicide note’, the post mortem report and the ongoing investigation’s conclusion yet to be ascertained.
