Tibet under electronic surveillance
China is miffed over India’s recruitment of Tibetans in the Special Frontier Force
Sitting in Dharchula of Pithoragarh district in Uttarakhand, repeated calls to locals in Purang town in the Tibet Autonomous Region using a Nepal Telecom SIM card do not materialise. Even if some calls go through, Tibetans at the other end either disconnect the call or the line would go blank after a few rings.
That was not the case till a few months ago when people from Dharchula — many of whom are fluent in Chinese and Nepalese — would regularly call up their Tibetan friends and exchange pleasantries. Several people from both sides share a close rapport, which further gets strengthened when they meet and stay together during the six months of annual trade that takes place in Tibet every year, under the watchful eyes of the People’s Liberation Army of China.
While Tibetans have been victims of atrocities unleashed by the PLA since decades, the escalating tension with India in eastern Ladakh is said to have led the Chinese Army to take up massive electronic surveillance on Tibetans in the Tibet Autonomous Region, especially those living close to the borders with India. The move, Indian agencies say, is due to suspicions that Tibetans might “leak vital information” about PLA deployments and their activities to India.
Coming as it does at a time when China is miffed over India’s recruitment of Tibetans in the Special Frontier Force which is fighting the PLA in eastern Ladakh, the Chinese Army is said to have issued multiple threats to local Tibetans if they are found indulging in “suspicious activity.”
Information accessed by Deccan Chronicle after speaking to multiple sources suggest that Tibet is under massive electronic surveillance since the tensions began escalating
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Indians residing close to the borders in Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh and other areas share a good rapport with Tibetans
In Tibet, human rights abuses include disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests and detentions, forced abortions and infanticide
According to one report, 87,000 deaths have been recorded in Lhasa alone between March 1959 and September 1960
between the two countries following the clashes in Galwan valley in June. This includes mobilephone monitoring and keeping an eye on other forms of communication, be it emails or chats — the contents of which are being monitored round the clock. It is learnt that in some areas close to the Indian borders, mobilephone networks have been jammed to ensure there is no communication.
Threats from the PLA have ensured that people keep to themselves lest they invite the wrath of PLA, whose brutality against Tibetans is well known. For the PLA, places like Purang are significant as they are not only close to the borders with India and Nepal, the Mansarovar lake and Mount Kailash are located towards the north of this town, the area where the PLA has deployed surfaceto-air missiles and is expanding its military base by taking up construction work.
Indian SIM cards do not work here due to poor connectivity and many locals in Dharchula use Nepal Telecom SIM cards to talk business with Tibetans.
It is not only Purang that PLA is worried about. Sources say that the
Chinese Army is heavily surveilling villages in Demchok in Ladakh, Tango and Yamrang areas in Khimkulla Pass along the LAC in Himachal Pradesh, Linzhi, a city in the southeast of the Tibet Autonomous Region which borders Arunachal Pradesh where the Bokar tribes live on both sides and also the areas near Nathu La.
“Tibetans living close to
the borders with India share a great rapport from even before the 1962 war as most of these routes were used for trade between the two nations. Generations of tribes or traders have close cultural ties besides having business interests which makes the PLA uncomfortable. With tensions at its peak between the countries ever since the 1962 war, the PLA wants to have a tighter grip over Tibet and its people, especially due to the friendship with the Indians,” sources said.
Besides strict electronic surveillance, Indian agencies have learnt that due to the heavy mobilisation of forces on the Chinese side, many Tibetans have been asked to evacuate and relocate to areas far away from the borders. In Tibet, not following the diktat of the PLA has led to disappearances, torture, arbitary arrests and even killings. Denial of freedom of speech and the Internet is a constant.
Recently, Chinese President Xi Jinping in his address to the seventh Central symposium on Tibet had called for building a “new modern socialist” Tibet and constructing an “impregnable wall” against separatism and “sinicisation” of the Tibetan Buddhism.