Amid row, Dalai Lama reaches Tawang after 7hr road journey

Tibetan spiritual leader The Dalai Lama on Friday reached Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang, which China claimsas its own and wants desperately enough to offer a swap forAksai Chin.

The exiled leader reached Tawang after a seven-hour road journey from Dirang in Arunachal.

He was to have reached Tawang by chopper from Guwahati on April 4, but bad weather forced him to take the 550km road from Guwahati.

The Dalai Lama’s first stop was Bomdila in Arunachal Pradesh’s West Kameng district, from where the Chinese soldiers had retreated after the 1962 war.

After a day of delivering sermon in Bomdila, he spent two days at Dirang, about 40km north, where he consecrated the Thupsing Dhargye monastery.

“His Holiness left Dirang in the morning (Friday),” said an officer of West Kameng district administration.

State police and paramilitary personnel kept a vigil along the 140-km stretch between Dirang and Tawang, particularly at Sela (13,700 feet) en route.

A 30-km stretch at Sela is partly snow-covered, wet because of melting snow, muddy and slippery.

A series of religious discourses by the Dalai Lama will begin on Saturday and he will stay at the Tawang monastery for four nights before leaving on April 11.

Security has been strengthened around the monastery.