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India reviews torch security
04/04/2008 07:25 - (SA)
New Delhi - Indian officials met on Thursday to review security for the country's leg of the Olympic torch relay after China's foreign minister called his Indian counterpart to seek assurances.
The torch's passage is a potential magnet for anti-Chinese protests by Tibetan exiles and their supporters who have staged demonstrations outside China's embassy in New Delhi and in their adopted home town of Dharamsala following unrest in Lhasa.
India's National Security Adviser MK Narayanan called the meeting of top officials with the Olympic torch run due in India on April 17.
"We have to be concerned about the Tibetan protests which is happening in many places," Suresh Kalmadi, the president of the Indian Olympic Association, told reporters after attending the security meeting.
"The Olympic torch does not belong to China only, it belongs to all nations."
On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi spoke to India's Pranab Mukherjee on the telephone.
Relay route could be curtailed
An Indian foreign ministry statement issued a day later said India would take the necessary measures to ensure the passage of the Olympic torch was a success.
Indian media reported that the length of the relay route could be curtailed to a third of the planned 9km to discourage protesters, but Kalmadi denied this.
Indian football captain Bhaichung Bhutia refused this week to carry the Olympic flame in protest against China's response to the recent unrest in Tibet.
India and neighbouring Nepal have seen almost daily protests by Tibetan exiles. Last month, a small group scaled the wall of the Chinese embassy compound in the Indian capital, prompting an angry China to summon India's envoy to Beijing.
Tibetan refugees detained
Protests continued on Thursday as well in the Buddhist pilgrim town of Bodh Gaya in eastern India, where hundreds of monks marched carrying pictures of what they said were victims of a Chinese crackdown in Tibet.
In Nepal, China's ambassador Zheng Xianglin urged Kathmandu to take tougher action against exiled Tibetans who he said were staging almost daily protests with "no ideas about the truth" of events in Tibet.
Nepali police have used force to break up demonstrations and have detained hundreds of Tibetan refugees, later freeing them.
Like India, Nepal considers Tibet as part of China and does not allow refugees to organise political activities against Beijing, a key donor to the Himalayan nation.
- Reuters
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