A Tibetan monk has burnt self to death in Tibet to protest against the Chinese invasion of Tibet two days ago according to the report in Tibet Times. The Tibetan monk named Tenga has resorted to the extreme step of self immolation to protest against China’s forced invasion of Tibet on Sunday, i.e., November 26 this year.
“Tenga burnt himself and called for the Freedom in Tibet. However, the police gathered at the scene immediately and forcefully took custody of his body. In addition to that, the incident led to deployment of large number of police in the region to scrutinize the activities of the local Tibetans there.” said an unidentified person from India to the Tibet Times.
The incident took place in Kardze in the western part of Sichuan province in Eastern Tibet. The report added that due to very heavy police control over the family members of Tenga and the villagers in his home town, the present status and whether the police has handed his body to the family members or not is not known.
The monk is a 63 year old Tibetan from Kardze part of Sichuan. The report said that though his parents passed away since his childhood, he is survived by three siblings of whom one live in the United States while the other two lives in Lhasa, Tibet. It was also mentioned that the venerable monk has also attended the 2005 Kalachakara initiations by His Holiness the Dalai Lama that took place in Amravati, South India.
Since 2008-2009, the unrest of resorting to self immolation by the Tibetans to protest against the Chinese gained huge momentum and till now more than 150 Tibetans have resorted to this extreme step of protest! Earlier this year, a Tibetan student burnt himself to death in Varanasi, India while another Tibetan man committed suicide to protest against China in Switzerland. All the protesters have been calling out for the restoration of human rights in Tibet that has been repressed by the Chinese invasion since 1950s and the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet.