By Tenzin Monlam
DHARAMSHALA, April 5: Three Tibetan women have been injured and 10 men arrested following a crackdown by Chinese police on a group of Tibetans who had approached the authorities to petition against a land grab case in Thewo County, Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture on April 1.
The Tibetans had pleaded the authorities to return their lands, which the authorities had forcefully confiscated. The Tibetans had approached the authorities to allow the cultivation of their land for farming. However, the Chinese police in hundreds responded with beating and extreme manhandling of the Tibetans. The injured Tibetans are currently admitted in a Chinese Hospital in the county.
The local Chinese authorities of Thewo County had forcefully grabbed the land of more than 10 families with an assurance of 10,000 Yuan per year as compensation.
Cases of forced land grab by Chinese authorities have also been reported from other areas in the past.
Around a dozen Tibetans were detained by the Chinese authorities in Thangkor Town of Dzoege County in the Ngaba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture September last year for reoccupying land taken from them five years ago for a ‘supposedly’ government project on environmental conservation.
In April last year, two Tibetans were arrested from Gengya nomadic village in Tibet’s Sangchu County, where Tibetans protested forced acquisition of graziing land for expansion of highway.
