Radio Free Asia-Reported by Dorjee Damdul
Friends of the late monk were trying to carry the remembrance to India for protection.
Authorities in western China’s Sichuan province last year seized a life-size statue of a revered Tibetan religious leader that was being taken into Tibet and arrested those involved in the statue’s manufacture and transport, RFA has learned.
The statue of Tulku Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, who died in 2015 in a Chinese prison under mysterious circumstances, was commissioned by the late monk’s students and was built by artists in Shenzhen, China, said Tenzin Yarphel, one of Tenzin Delek’s students now living in Europe.
“The initial plan was to bring Rinpoche’s statue to India, but there were too many restrictions against sending it there, so it had to be brought to Tibet and hidden away until the right opportunity to move it arose,” Yarphel said.
Tenzin Delek Rinpoche’s statue was seized in June 2021 by police in Dartsedo in Sichuan’s Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture while being taken to Lithang, the religious leader’s home county, Yarphel said.
A Tibetan man named Kalsang Tsering who had arranged to pick up the statue and bring it to Lithang was then taken into custody along with an assistant, Yarphel said. Click here to read more.