A "former" Tibetan Buddhist monk died and another suffered injuries after they set themselves on fire in southwestern China as the Communist nation grappled with continuing trend of monks resorting to self immolation to protest curbs on laity and to demand the return of Dalai Lama.
One person was dead and the other injured after they set themselves on fire simultaneously in southwestern Sichuan province two days ago, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
A 22-year-old man set himself ablaze at around at a crossroad in Aba county in the Aba Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture.
Police rushed to put the fire out and sent him to a local hospital, said a spokesman for the county's government.
Another man, identified to be 18-year-old, died of self- immolation in a hotel room
not far from the crossroad later.
The "injured man confessed that they conspired to commit self immolations," Xinhua quoted the spokesman as saying.
An investigation by the local government showed that the two men were former monks from the Kirti Monastery in the prefecture who have resumed "secular life", it claimed.
The immolations have become a new trend of protests by monks in Tibet. So far 13 monks, including two nuns, burnt themselves or rescued while attempting to do so in public places in recent months.
One such incident was reported from Tibet and another from Nepal, where a Tibetan refugee attempted to commit suicide.
China blames Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama for instigating the suicides. Most of monks who committed suicide hailed from Kirti monastery in Sichuan province adjacent to Tibet. The monasteries there houses hundreds of monks. One incident reported from Tibet itself.
After these incidents the police and public officials began carrying small size fire extinguishers to douse fire when ever they come across a self immolation incident.
While the official media reports were silent on the causes for the immolations, reports put out by the overseas Tibetan groups and videos posted on social networking sites say they were aimed to highlight growing frustration among the monks over restrictions and their demand to permit the Dalai Lama to return from exile in Dharmashala.
According to Xinhua today, the two monks who attempted suicides were involved in "thefts".
The deceased man is a suspect at large in the case of the burglary of a Buddha statue at Kirti Monastery.
"The several self-immolation cases recently were committed by people who previously had got punished for their wrongdoings such as whoring, gambling and burglary, or deep in debt because of gambling," said Gang Zheng, a 'Tibetology expert' with the Sichuan Tibetology Research Center.
According to Gang, the Dalai Lama "clique had instigated and enticed them to commit self-immolations, taking advantage of their wish to wash away their sins and humiliation".
The Dalai Lama was trying to make this serve his political purposes, said Yi Fei, another Tibetology expert with the centre.
A recent article in state-run People's Daily termed the suicides as "grave sin" and violation of Buddhist tenets.
"Several Buddhist monks and nuns have committed suicide in the Tibetan regions of Sichuan province recently. By burning themselves to death they have broken one of the core tenets of Buddhism in an extreme and brutal way," the commentary said.
As Buddhists, one of the Five Precepts, or rules they should live by, is they should avoid killing or harming any living being, including themselves, it said.