Clampdown snuffs out Olympic torch protests

Runners carried the Olympic flame along a heavily guarded and cut down route through New Delhi today keeping Tibetan exiles and other protesters from disrupting the ceremony.

Much of the city centre was sealed off and protected by about 15,000 police in some of the tightest security ever seen in the capital.

India is home to the world's largest Tibetan exile community and while there were scattered Tibetan protests in New Delhi and other Indian cities, police kept them under control.

To avoid the chaos that has marked the torch runs in London, Paris and San Francisco, Indian authorities cut the relay route to less than two miles. That meant each of the 70 runners in the relay could jog with the flame for only a few seconds before handing the flame to the next person.

The torchbearers were surrounded by rings of jogging security forces, first Chinese forces in blue tracksuits and then Indians in red ones, as they ran from the presidential palace to the historic India Gate monument, where an Olympic cauldron was lit. Several buses of police followed the runners.

The public was allowed nowhere near the relay, and crowds amounted to just several hundred young people sitting on benches wearing T-shirts of Olympic sponsor, Coca-Cola, and several hundred members of India's Chinese community.

Shortly after the Olympic flame was flown to New Delhi early today from its last stop in Pakistan, around 20 Tibetan exiles chanted anti-China slogans and protested along a busy road to the airport. Several of the protesters were detained by police.

Thousands of Tibetans took part in their own torch run to highlight the Tibetan struggle.

Public sympathy in India lies with the Tibetans, who have sought refuge in the country since the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader, fled Tibet after a failed uprising against Beijing in 1959, setting up his government-in-exile in the northern town of Dharmsala.

In Mumbai, India's financial capital, police detained some 25 Tibetans who tried to breach the barricades surrounding the Chinese consulate there. Protesters shouted "Free Tibet" as they were dragged into police vehicles.

The protests reached the isolated Indian Himalayan region of Ladakh, which borders Tibet, where at least 5,000 Tibetan exiles and local Buddhists marched amid a strike call that shut down all businesses and schools.

Tibetan exiles, who number more than 100,000 in India, have staged near-daily protests in New Delhi since demonstrations first broke out in Tibet in March and were put down by Chinese authorities.

The exiles said the torch run was a perfect opportunity to make their point, despite the fact that the Dalai Lama says he supports China's hosting of the Olympics.

"By speaking out when the Chinese government brings the Olympic torch to India, you will send a strong message to Tibetans, to the Chinese government, and to the world, that Indians support the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people's non-violent struggle for freedom and justice," according to Students for a Free Tibet, an exile group.