“In the course of regular checking, we found they did not have travel documents,” said inspector Sudhir Shahi, who is posted at Thankot checkpoint. Of the Tibetans, 126 are men and the rest are women. [break]
The Tibetans, who were handed over to the Department of Immigration (DoI) on Friday, were eventually freed after most of them produced Chinese passports and all of them agreed to leave Nepal within three days. Though many of the Tibetans have visas allowing them to stay in Nepal until February, they have been asked to leave the country within such a short span of time as punishment.
The Tibetans had traveled to Kathmandu from India in six buses, three jeeps and a car, mainly from Birgunj and Sunauli. Of the vehicles, five had Indian registration numbers, while the rest had Nepali registration numbers.
The Tibetans, who had initially traveled from Tibet to Nepal with valid travel papers, had traveled from Nepal to India to attend a Tibetan religious ceremony in Bihar without carrying any travel document, said Sudhir Kumar Shah, director general of DoI.
“They had obtained visas to travel to Nepal, but did not have permission to visit India,” Shah said.
The Tibetans entered Nepal from Tibet mainly from the Kodari customs point along the Nepal-Tibet border. In Kathmandu, they left all their travel documents and traveled to India to attend Kalachakra, a Tibetan religious ceremony, held from Jan 1 to 10 at Bodhgaya in Bihar state of India. Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama presided over the Kalachakra initiation ceremony.
An official at DoI, who preferred not to be identified, said the Tibetans traveled to India without carrying their Chinese passports because they did not want official records of their travel to the sacred Buddhist site of Bodhgaya. The pilgrims evidently wanted authorities back in China to believe that they had traveled to Nepal only.
As most of the Tibetans arrived in Kathmadu from Birgunj and Sunauli, the DoI has instructed immigration authorities posted at Birgunj and Sunauli to step up checkings, said a DoI source.
“Undermining immigration law of Nepal, a sovereign country, can affect diplomatic relations,” said Suman Mahara, chief investigation officer of Information Coordination and Analysis Section at DoI. “Traveling without carrying passport despite having one is a very sensitive issue,” he added.
Though all the arrested Tibetans were freed Friday, only 114 of them have managed to produce their Chinese passports so far.
The rest were released after Shambhu Lama, chief of Tibet desk at Human Rights Organization of Nepal (HURON), took responsibility to present their passports at DoI, according to Sudip Pathak, chairman of HURON.
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