Dalai Lama representative interrogated

KATHMANDU, Aug 5: Thiley Lama, the Nepal representative of the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, was briefly detained and interrogated by police in Kathmandu Friday.



Thiley was interrogated after his office, Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office (TRWO), issued a statement contradicting the claims by police about two alleged Tibetan teenagers arrested from TIA last week while trying to fly to America with fake documents.[break]



Metropolitan Police Range Kathmandu (MPRK) held Thiley from his Lazimpat office together with his aides and interrogated him Hanumandhoka till late in the evening. He was released after signing a paper that said the TRWO would inform the authorities before issuing any such statements.



TRWO in its statement had claimed that the teenagers, who police claimed were Tibetan refugees and had illegally acquired Nepali passports, were not Tibetans and they had acquired refugee identification papers by furnishing fake documents.



"We have found that all the documents furnished by Jayang Tenzin and Tsering Lhamo to get the Birth and Bona fide Certificates from our office were fabricated and no records of them were found in the refugee camp office and Tibetan Reception Centre. Even the Central Tibetan Adminstration (CTA) in Dharmasala, India does not have any record in this regard," TRWO had said in its statement.



TRWO has even apologized "for the incident of the non-Tibetans getting the refugee status papers." "We have been alerted by this incident," it said.



MPRK chief SP Kedar Rijal, meanwhile, said that Thiley was only called for seeking "some clarifications" about the statement.



Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) had nabbed the alleged Tibetan siblings from TIA on July 26 while trying to board a flight to the US in possession of both Nepali passports and Tibetan refugee papers. They were even found to have possessed special immigration documents issued by the US embassy Kathmandu.



Police have found that the teenagers were being slipped through TIA in collusion with immigration officials. A section officer at the Department of Immigration, Ghanashyam Gautam, was arrested Wednesday in connection with the incident.

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