New Delhi - Former Indian police officer Kiran Bedi announced Wednesday that she was withdrawing from the Olympic torch relay in New Delhi as the security arrangements were too suffocating for an athlete.

The Olympic torch is scheduled to pass through the Indian capital on April 17 and the Indian government has said it would put the tightest security measures in place and possibly reduce the route to ensure there were no disruptions by pro-Tibet protestors.

The tight security arrangements would leave little space to run for freedom, unity and harmony, said Bedi, the first female officer in the Indian Police Service, in an interview on NDTV television network.

Bedi, who sought voluntary retirement in 2007, said the Indian police were well-equipped to handle demonstrations by the Tibetans and added, "The authorities could have been more balanced in handling the protests while giving a sense of more space to the torch.

"I was not running as a formality but as a former sportswoman ... a former tennis player," Bedi said. She insisted she was boycotting the relay on the issue of athletic freedom, and that it had nothing to do with the Tibetan cause.

Bedi is the second person to boycott the torch relay in India after Indian football captain Baichung Bhutia.

Meanwhile, thousands of Tibetan refugees have reached Delhi to join three days of intense action beginning Thursday to mark a month of the unrest in Lhasa.

"More than 5,000 Tibetans have reached Majnu ki Tila (a Tibetan refugee settlement in Delhi) from the surrounding states," Youdan Aukatsang, a member of the Tibetan Solidarity Committee, said.

The committee was formed by the Tibetan government-in-exile to draw together various Tibetan groups and unite their protests and give them direction.

"We will remember the people killed in Tibet on Thursday and hold a mock funeral, on Friday we will hold prayers for those arrested and on Saturday for those injured," Aukatsang said.

A group of protest marchers who set off March 10 from the northern Indian hill town of Dharamsala - the seat of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile - and was detained by police for 14 days, also reached Delhi Thursday to join the protests at the Janatar Mantar district of the capital, Aukatsang said.

A group of 85 students, aged between 15 and 18, from Tibetan schools and colleges from Dharamsala and Bylakuppe in southern Karanataka state also joined the demonstrators at Jantar Mantar. Bylakuppe is the largest Tibetan settlement in India.

Aukatsang said it was not clear whether the thousands of demonstrators gathering in the city would stay until the torch relay on April 17. "But we are planning protests for that day," she said.

She said the protests would be "peaceful" and they would most likely seek permission of the city police, but added that some groups like the Tibetan Youth Congress may decide to hold separate actions.(dpa)