April 10, 2005 ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
Tenzin Tsundue was not a security risk in the conventional risk of the word — no hidden weapons, no explosives strapped on to his body, no paper-cutters even. Given that police bandobust (a Indian English term for tight security arrangements) had left little room for protests on the ground, he took it to the third dimension.
For quite some time, the (Bangalore) City police were left dumbstruck. A Tibetan protester caused a security breach by climbing on the tower of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) building in Bangalore and raised slogans against the Chinese occupation of Tibet, even as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was addressing the scientists on the ground floor on Sunday afternoon.
The high drama began to unfold around 3 pm, after the Chinese Premier arrived at IISc along with a large delegation. He was addressing the scientists when it all started.
Taking the police and the IISc security personnel off guard, the man emerged from the tower of the main building waving a ‘Tibetan flag’ and a red cloth banner carrying the words ‘Free Tibet’, and threw pamphlets down with the message ‘Let there be peace in Tibet’ written on them. [Deccan Herald]Given that Wen Jiabao’s visit is all about new co-operation and closing the lids on old bilateral disputes, the Indian government had to reiterate that the Chinese premier was a honoured guest, and the protest was ‘unfortunate’, conducted as it was by a ‘miscreant’ who managed hoodwink the security men. It is unclear what the government means by this, because cloth banners do not usually set off metal detectors.
Related Link: Tenzin Tsundue’s website
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