Indian police said Friday they had raided the monastery of a top Buddhist monk seen as the possible next spiritual leader for Tibet and seized hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. Police swooped on the Karmapa's monastery in Dharamshala, a hill station in northern India, on Thursday and returned Friday to question staff about the origins of local and foreign bank notes discovered on the premises.
An aide has been arrested and $600,000 in dollar bills has been discovered as well as currencies from another 25 countries, senior local policeman P.L. Thakur told AFP in Dharamshala. "The Karmapa has no role in it. The investigations will lead us to a further course of action," Thakur told AFP without elaborating.
The Karmapa fled Tibet as a 14-year-old because he said he was concerned that Beijing would force him to turn against the Dalai Lama, who has acted as a father-like figure for him in Dharamshala. China regards the Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist and has sought to groom monks who would accept Tibet as being an integral part of China and drop all claims for an independent state.
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