London, July 14 : Chinese soldiers have reportedly placed over 1,000 Tibetan Buddhist monks under armed guard in monasteries around Lhasa, four months after anti-Chinese riots left the area in a state of devastation.
According to The Times, troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have sealed off Drepung, the largest monastery in Tibet.
Nobody is being allowed to go in or out. Photography is banned and passers-by are being shooed away.
A camp of olive-green tents and two rings of roadblocks surround this sanctuary of meditation. Local people say the monks pay the army for food to be sent to them.