New Delhi - India's football captain Bhaichung Bhutia has refused to carry the Beijing Olympic torch when the flame passes through New Delhi this month, in protest against China's crackdown on the unrest in Tibet, officials and news reports said Tuesday. The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) had invited eminent Indian sports personalities to participate in the relay in Delhi on April 17.
Bhutia, who was among those invited to carry the Olympic flame, sent in his refusal over fax to the Association on Monday, an Indian sports ministry official said requesting anonymity.
India's ace footballer, among the first athletes to have refused to run with the torch, is a Buddhist and is from India's north-eastern state of Sikkim which borders China.
Buddhism forms a large minority in Sikkim with 28.1 per cent of the population following the religion while 60 per cent are Hindus.
"This is my way of standing by the people of Tibet and their struggle. I abhor violence in any form," Bhutia told the Times of India newspaper. "I sympathize with the Tibetan cause. I have many friends in Sikkim who follow Buddhism," he said.
Bhutia said he had not been requested by any group to pull out of the torch run. "This is an absolutely personal decision. I feel what's happening in Tibet is not right and in my small way I should show my solidarity," he was quoted by the daily as saying.
India's football team will not be competing at the Olympics as the Asian berths have been claimed by Japan, South Korea and Australia.
The Olympic torch arrived in Beijing on Monday after demonstrations by a pro-Tibet group during its passage from Olympia in Greece. Protests are expected by Buddhist groups and other organizations during the flame's 137,000 kilometre global passage through 135 cities.
Bhutia is not the first public personality to have distanced himself from the Beijing Olympics.
The Times of India reported that in February, Hollywood director Steven Spielberg withdrew as an artistic adviser to the Olympics over China's support to the Sudanese government at a time when the regime was charged with massacres in the Darfur region.
Bhutia took the decision on Monday, the same day that Tibetan exiles appealed to Indians chosen to be Olympic torchbearers to withdraw from the relay in a show of support for their cause.
An estimated 100,000 Tibetan refugees currently live in 35 settlements and numerous smaller communities across India. The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and thousands of Tibetans fled to India after China cracked down on the Tibetan uprising of 1959.
