INDIA:SCORES OF Tibetan demonstrators were arrested in India's capital yesterday as thousands of paramilitary guards and police protected a lacklustre and sparingly attended run of the Beijing Olympic torch through the city.
More than 15,000 security force personnel hopelessly outnumbered the handful of schoolchildren and invitees, as around 70 sport and Bollywood stars half-heartedly participated in the scaled-back 2.3km relay, which lasted barely half an hour.
Participants were tightly monitored by track-suited Chinese security guards, allowed to run a few yards each down Raj Path to India Gate, New Delhi's best-known monument.
Earlier, some 500 Tibetan exiles organised a parallel relay from the mausoleum of Mahatma Gandhi, the disciple of non-violence, to a popular protest square close to the spot where the Olympic torch would later travel.
Tibetans have been holding protests in the square for several weeks to highlight their opposition to the Chinese government's policies in their homeland.
Protests against the Olympics also erupted in the western port city of Mumbai and India's northern Himalayan region of Ladakh, bordering Tibet, where around 5000 Tibetan exiles and local Buddhists conducted a march at Leh.
India, while it is home to the Dalai Lama and over 100,000 Tibetan exiles and dissidents, is anxious not to upset Beijing, with which Delhi has burgeoning political, commercial and diplomatic relations, in addition to fledgling military ties.
Consequently, it had assured Beijing that chaotic protests surrounding the torch's relay, such as those seen in Paris and London, would not mar the event in Delhi.
To vindicate its pledge, the authorities sealed off all offices surrounding the relay, including those of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his senior cabinet colleagues, and battened down windows.
Armed police personnel guarded the rooftops of these buildings to prevent infiltration by any Tibetan dissidents, and barricades manned by armed paramilitary personnel were erected within a three-kilometre radius of the relay venue.
The torch left for Bangkok later in the evening.