By Arun Ram
CHENNAI, February 4 – As investigations into the December 28, 2005 firing at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, is yet to yield any definite lead, another valiant yet non-violent breach of security, eight months before the incident on the same campus, is virtually forgotten today.
It was on April 10, 2005, when Chinese premier Wen Jiabao was interacting with top scientists at the ground floor of the IISc administrative building that Tenzin Tsundue, a 30-year-old Tibetan activist waved a “Free Tibet” banner and the Tibetan national flag from atop the tower of the same building.
Braving security, he had climbed a storm water pipe to reach the top of the imposing building the previous night.
When Tsundue says, “catching the media’s attention when the Chinese PM was in, and not the security, was the biggest challenge,” it exposes many chinks in the security armour – that too during the high profile visit of a national head.
Ten months after the incident, Tsundue gives a blow-by-blow account- for the first time – of the daring act to DNA.
How Tsundue did it
- On the afternoon of April 9, I visited the IISc, for the first time, and found this very tall building. I had done a similar protest from atop the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai in 2002. The bare and imposing building scared me.
- However, when I went around to the rear side, I saw bushes and a storm water pipe running along the entire length of the building.
- I came back with a banner, flag and pamphlets concealed in a T-shirt around 8.30 pm. The building was lit up at the front and there were security men. But the rear side was dark. I jumped into the bushes and started climbing the pipe. It took one hour to reach the roof level, from where the tower started.
- I slept on the slanting roof till 2.30 am and started climbing the tower, a hollow structure with wrought iron spiral stairs. By 3.30 am, I had reached a narrow balcony at the top, where I lay for the next 11 hours.
- At 2.30 pm, the appointed time of the Chinese PM’s arrival, I peeped down. There was no sign of the PM, but there was an army of media people (By then, Jiabao was already in the building). I stood up and unfurled the banner and flag, shouting slogans against the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
- I thought I would be arrested in a few moments, but I got a full 15 minutes to deliver speeches in both English and Hindi, before policemen came up and bashed me up. Seeing that I was unarmed, the Commissioner asked the policemen to stop beating me. I was not there to harm anyone. I just had to stand up for the freedom of my country. My job was done.
(Tsundue, facing charges of trespassing and attempt to suicide, has to appear in a Bangalore court on March 2).
