Beijing, November 13
China is training Buddhist monks and nuns in Tibet to carry out anti-espionage operations along the remote India-China border to prevent attempts to create “conflict” by “ethnic separatists”, in a veiled reference to the Dalai Lama and his supporters.
“Twenty-two monks and nuns from three temples in Nyingchi, a city in southeastern Tibet, close to the Sino- Indian border, received the three-hour lecture at Lamaling Temple on the counter-espionage law by local and national security officials,” state-run news portal Tibet.cn reported.
The lecture conducted in the Himalayan region along the border with India was about how to abide by the counter-espionage law and the legal consequences of violating the law, it said.
“Nyingchi is of special importance to anti-espionage efforts because there are many military sites,” said Penpa Lhamo, deputy head of the contemporary studies institute of the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences.
Monks and nuns are considered vulnerable to espionage activities, as many senior officials in China often visit eminent monks. And temples have always been a focus of government to maintain the stability of Tibet, said Li Wei, an anti-terrorism expert with the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. — PTI

Rajnath to visit Beijing from Nov 19
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