Tibetan sets himself on fire in protest over Chinese visit

A TIBETAN activist unfurled a Tibetan flag and then set himself on fire yesterday outside the Mumbai hotel where Chinese President Hu Jintao was courting Indian business leaders eager to boost trade between Asia’s emerging giants.

Until yesterday, Indian authorities had successfully prevented protests with the potential to embarrass Hu, erecting heavy police cordons everywhere he went.

Activists accused India of abandoning Tibetans in an attempt to placate China.

Lhakpa Tsering and six other Tibetan youths were able to drive right up to Hu’s hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace and Towers. Their two taxis parked in front of a thin barricade outside the hotel, they jumped out and began chanting slogans against China’s occupation of Tibet.

Tsering then doused his trousers with a liquid and set them on fire.

Several policemen quickly jumped on the man, rolled him on the ground and doused the flames.

Hu was inside the hotel at the time preparing to address an audience of 300 Indian business leaders and a 250-person Chinese trade delegation.

Police took the men away for questioning.

Mumbai police commissioner AN Roy said Tsering, the head of the Tibetan Youth Congress in the southern city of Bangalore, was not seriously wounded.

He denied there had been a breach of security, saying the incident occurred outside police barricades.

However, after the incident police cordoned off adjacent roads to the hotel.

Asked about the protests and the incident outside the hotel, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said: “Tibet is part of China, this is a widely recognised consensus of the international community.” Jiang was speaking at a regular briefing in Beijing.

India became a centre for Tibetan exiles after their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled there in 1959 after a failed uprising, settling in the northern town of Dharmsala.

Last week, police barred Tenzin Tsundue — a prominent Tibetan activist with a reputation for publicity stunts that have embarrassed previous Chinese visitors and Indian police — from leaving Dharmsala during Hu’s visit.