Tibetans protest near Rajpath minutes after torch's arrival

Press Trust Of India

New Delhi , April 17, 2008

Around 30 Tibetans assembled on Thursday morning outside a hotel near Rajpath, the venue for the Olympic torch relay, and shouted anti-China slogans, minutes after the torch touched down the Indian soil.

In the first protest after the torch's arrival, the Tibetans gathered outside the hotel Le Meridian, where the Olympic torch is supposedly kept, near the Rajpath in the high security zone and started shouting anti-China slogans at around 3.30 am.

Some of the protesters, shouting slogans like 'Justice for Tibet' and 'We want freedom', tried to break the barricades put on the road.

Security forces, present on the scene, immediately chased them away and detained some of the protesters.

Police immediately removed the protesters from the road and placed some of them under detention, a senior police official said.

Earlier, thirty-two Tibetans blocked the road near Army Research and Referral hospital near Dhaula Kuan in south west Delhi at around 1 am, just before the arrival of the torch.

The Olympic torch touched down the Indian soil at around 1.10 am with colourfully dressed children receiving the flame here amid unprecedented security.

The torch, 72-centimetre long and weighing 985 grams, was flown to New Delhi in a specially designed flight from Islamabad, its last stop before New Delhi.