Tibetan immolates self in Golok

Phayul[Monday, October 06, 2014 19:35]

Kunchok, 42, DHARAMSHALA, October 6: A Tibetan man immolated himself near a police station in Gade County, Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, eastern Tibet on September 16, a day before another Tibetan set himself ablaze in Tsoe County, Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, according to the UK based Tibet Watch. Kunchok, 42, set himself on fire on 16 September near a police station Tsangkor Sholma township, Gade County, before onlookers doused the flames and rushed him to hospital. He became the 133rd Tibetan to resort to self immolation as a form of protest against the Chinese government. "News of his protest has just emerged as local Tibetans did not want to put him or those who assisted him at risk of arrest," said Tibet Watch. “I failed to accomplish my wish,” Kunchok kept saying after regaining consciousness at hospital. A father of two, Kunchok has sustained serious burn injuries and is currently undergoing treatment. His family, however, are concerned that he will succumb to his burns. Details of the hospital are being withheld to prevent him from being detained by security forces, said the Tibetan Watch. "Most surviving self-immolators are detained incommunicado; those who die in custody or whose bodies are taken by the police are usually cremated by the authorities who return the ashes to the family, preventing them from conducting normal funeral services."