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'No request from Karmapa for asylum'

NEW DELHI: A high-ranking Tibetan lama who fled from Lhasa to India last week has not asked for political asylum, Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes said on Saturday.

The demand had not been raised by any other person, he added.

A local news agency, the Press Trust of India, earlier reported that a member of Tibet's parliament-in-exile had urged India to grant asylum to the boy lama.

Fernandes, briefing reporters on his recent four-day visit to Japan, said the Japanese had raised the issue at all levels during his stay in the country.

"This matter was raised in every discussion and at every level, official and non-official or even in social get-togethers and the point was whether India would grant political asylum to the Karmapa," Fernandes said.

He said he told the Japanese side that India has allowed the lama to stay in India and was taking care of his security.

"In so far as political asylum is concerned till (Friday) when I was there, there is no word of any kind of a direct request from Karmapa or from anyone on his behalf asking for political asylum," Fernandes added.

He said the Japanese appeared concerned abouy the issue but did not suggest what India should do under the circumstances.

The 17th Karmapa Lama, the highest Tibetan lama whose authority is recognised by China, fled Lhasa and arrived in Dharamsala in India on January 5 after an arduous 1,400-km (875 mile) trek through the snowbound Himalayas.

The boy monk's journey revived memories of the escape of Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama to India four decades ago.

Thousands of Tibetans led by the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, nine years after China's communist army entered Tibet and otherthrew the Buddhist theocracy there.-Reuters