By Choekyi Lhamo
DHARAMSHALA, March 16: A young entrepreneur named Pasang Norbu has been detained forcibly by the police in Gamba County in the so called Tibetan Autonomous Region on Friday, according to Dharamshala rights group Tibet Watch. The report said that the owner of a bike tour company, aged in his 20s, was badly beaten and taken away to prison, after the authorities shut down his company and all his bicycles were confiscated.
Citing an anonymous source, Tibet Watch revealed that despite the company being officially registered, Pasang was ordered to shut it down. ‘Cycling Travel Guide Service’ continued to run the business after the order came, so as a result, he was forcibly taken away. “Norbu had to pay 18,000 Yuan (approximately 2170 GBP) to obtain the [business registration] license and his business was going successfully. But the county police authorities ordered him to close his cycling travel guide service in the name of unsafe and illegal activities,” the source told Tibet Watch.
However, his whereabouts and other details around his situation remain unknown. As per the report, his father passed away when was a student in secondary school, and later Pasang left his mother Tsamkyi and 13-year-old sister to build his career; he founded the company in 2020. The reason for arrest of the young businessman still remains unclear as no information of his whereabouts have yet been relayed to his family of two.
As per the rights group, last year in July, the county’s Border Defence committee issued an announcement that laid out cash rewards including 8,000 Yuan “to the informant; for units and individuals who directly capture illegal entry and exit personnel or organizer(s) or transporter(s) of others illegally cross the country (border)”, “special awards based on the number of people captured”, and “for those who proactively report abnormal situations in the border area…a reward of 50 Yuan or more based on the importance of the information and the degree of harm.”
