DHARAMSALA: The Himachal Bachao Sangarsh Samiti announced recently, to continue its anti-Tibetan agitation saying that state Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh was not taking all sections into confidence to defuse the situation,
Samiti general secretary Jagdish Chander told media persons, here. that the Samiti’s agitation was not against the Dalai Lama but was against the Center and the state governments whose myopic policies had led to the breach of peace here recently and created tension between the two communities.
He said the chief minister was making “one-sided statements” and was belittling the “grave situation” by describing the killing of Upenderjit as a small incident. The Samiti leader said if the Dalai Lama wanted to go he could go. “We cannot prevent him from shifting,” he said, adding that those locals who were urging him not to go from here were without any mass base and had got “self interests.”
Jagdish Chander said it was wrong to presume that the agitation had lost its sting and added that a meeting of the Samiti had been convened for May 29 to chalk out the strategy for a peaceful agitation.
He said a detailed master plan should be made to locate the office of the Tibetan secretariat and the residence of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala.
“It will strengthen the security of the Tibetans and will not create any tension between the two com- munities here,” he said.
Kapoor said it was sad that the Chief Minister, who had visited Dharamsala twice after the stabbing incident, did not bother to meet the family of the deceased youth. “Neither any district officials cared to visit the bereaved family of an ex-serviceman,” he said.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 27, 1994
