Scores arrested amid tight security as torch hits India

SCORES of Tibetan demonstrators were arrested yesterday as thousands of police and soldiers defended the Beijing Olympic torch on a suffocating run through the Indian capital.

The heart of New Delhi was almost totally sealed off for the most sensitive leg of the protest-hit global relay to date, with security personnel far outnumbering the schoolboys and other select onlookers allowed to watch.

India is home to 100,000 Tibetan refugees, including the Dalai Lama and radical youth groups, and authorities wanted to ensure that chaotic protests like those seen in Paris and London did not mar the event.

The scaled-back 2.3 kilometre relay lasted little more than 30 minutes without any disruption.

Relay participants were tightly marshalled by tracksuited Chinese security guards, and allowed to run a few metres each.

An estimated 16,000 police, soldiers and elite commandos were deployed to throw up a security cordon around the avenue between the presidential palace and India Gate, two of New Delhi’s main landmarks.

“We have around 170 to 180 people in custody,” a senior police official said after a day marked by a string of protests and shrouded in a fortress-like atmosphere of tracker dogs, bomb disposal units and metal detectors.

The Tibetan Youth Congress, a radical activist group that spearheaded attempts to disrupt the event, gave a similar figure on the number of demonstrators taken in by police.

Another activist, Tibetan poet Tenzin Tsundue, claimed several of those detained had suffered injuries.

The round-the-world relay has been dogged by protests over China’s military crackdown in Tibet and its human rights record — overshadowing China’s prestige in hosting the world’s biggest sporting event.