100 monks arrested following Tibetan attack on police station

NEARLY 100 monks were arrested yesterday after hundreds of Tibetans attacked a police station and government officials in north-western China on Saturday.

Six of those arrested for alleged involvement in the attack were caught by police, while 89 others turned themselves in, said the official Xinhua News Agency. All but two were monks, it said.

The protest appeared to be in response to the disappearance of a Tibetan who escaped from police custody in Qinghai province, Xinhua said.

According to a Tibetan exile, the protest — in which nearly 100 monks from the Ragya Monastery attacked the police station in Ragya — involved as many as 2,000 people. It was sparked by the apparent suicide of a monk being investigated for unfurling a Tibetan flag.