A police officer was killed in fresh violence in Sichuan province near Tibet, China said as it struggled to quell the fortnight-long monks-led pro-independence protests.
BEIJING: A police officer was killed in fresh violence in Sichuan province near Tibet, China said on Tuesday as it struggled to quell the fortnight-long monks-led pro-independence protests and vowed stricter control of Buddhist monasteries.
Armed with knives and stones, a mob attacked the police officers in Garze prefecture on Monday, killing one of them on the spot and injuring several others, a local official said.
The police fired warning shots and dispersed the lawless mobsters; the official was quoted as saying by state run Xinhua news agency.
Authorities also claimed that 381 people, mostly monks, had "surrendered" in Tibetan-populated area of southwest Sinchuan, where the police had opened fire and wounded four persons last week after the riots which had broken out in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa spilled into the nearby provinces.
China's Minister for Public Security Meng Jianzhu visited Lhasa vowing stricter management of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries there, the official Tibet Daily reported on Tuesday.
"Tibetan Buddhist culture is an important constituent part of Chinese civilisation. But any religion must act within the bounds of Constitution and the law, and not interfere in administration, judiciary, education and so on," Meng said.
At least 19 people were killed and 700 injured after the pro-independence demonstrations by monks coinciding with 1959 failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet turned violent spiralling into the first major challenge to the communist giant in two decades.
China has poured in military and riot police in the restive Himalayan region to crush the revolt, which it alleges has been "masterminded" by exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. It accused him of taking "hostage" the Beijing Olympics, to be held in August, to force it to bend on the Tibet issue. The charges have been denied by the Dalai Lama who has accused Beijing of unleashing "cultural genocide" in Tibet.
China has been saying for the past few days that the situation in riot-hit areas was calm. But Tibetan groups claim that at least 130 people had died in the continuing protests.
China said yesterday that five suspects, including three women, had been detained in connection with two riot cases in which 10 persons were burnt to death.
The traditional Olympic torch lighting ceremony in Greece was also on Monday marred by anti-China protests as despite tight security two demonstrators ran onto the field at Ancient Olympia behind Liu Qi, the president of Beijing's Olympics Organising Committee and Beijing Communist Party Secretary, while he was giving a speech.
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