7 Die as Tibetans Go on Rampage for Independence
Thousands of Tibetans demanding independence stoned Chinese police in Lhasa and set fire to a police station and police vehicles, witnesses said today. At least three people were killed, they said.
The witnesses, who flew to Chengdu from Lhasa, said there were unconfirmed reports that six Tibetans and one Chinese were killed in the demonstration Thursday in Johkang Temple square in the center of Lhasa, Tibet’s capital.
The witnesses reported seeing two bodies in the square and a teen-age boy shot in the head who reportedly died en route to a hospital.
Chengdu, 750 miles east of Lhasa, is the capital of Sichuan province, which borders Tibet, a predominantly Buddhist land in the Himalaya Mountains annexed by China in 1950.
The witnesses said eight Buddhist monks were arrested, but that at least some escaped from the police station when it was set on fire. An undetermined number of foreign bystanders were detained briefly and had their film confiscated, the travelers said.
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