Police stopped nearly 500 Tibetan exiles in northeastern India on Monday from marching to the Chinese border to demand a halt to China's crackdown on protesters in Tibet.
Police blocked their entry into the state of Sikkim which borders China, said an officer, Sonam Bhutia. The protesters carried Tibetan flags and chanted slogans demanding they be allowed to go to Tibet.
"We have barricaded the road and we shall not allow the Tibetans to continue the march," Bhutia told The Associated Press.
The Tibetans living in India's northeast began their march Thursday from West Bengal state and planned to enter China using the Nathu La pass in Sikkim.
"The goal of the marchers is to fight shoulder to shoulder with Tibetans inside Tibet," said Ugyen Tsewang, general secretary of the Northeast Tibetan Youth Congress, which organized the march.
"We haven't given up our effort yet. We are persuading the state authorities to allow us continue our march," Tsewang said by phone from Rongpo, a town in West Bengal state.
"We will start a hunger strike if the state authorities don't accept our demand," he said. "We want to confront the Chinese police and not the Indian police."
Protests started March 10 in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on the 49th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule. They turned violent four days later, touching off demonstrations among Tibetans in three neighboring Chinese provinces.
Beijing's official death toll from the protests is 22, but the Tibetan government-in-exile in India has said 99 Tibetans have been killed.
India has generally allowed the Tibetan exiles to protest peacefully, but earlier this month detained several dozen protesters who had planned a separate march from northern India to Tibet to coincide with the opening of the Beijing Olympics, saying India would not tolerate actions that embarrassed China.
Dozens of protesters heading to Tibet from a town near Dharmsala in northern India also said Monday they had halted their march for the time being.
The Dalai Lama "told us that we should look at the situation in Tibet which is quite grave," said B. Tsering, president of the Tibetan Women's Association.
