NEW DELHI: The Dalai Lama, 16-year-old boy ruler of Tibet, has fled from Lhasa as an estimated 21,000 Chinese Communist invaders drove to within 50 miles of the capital city, reports from the Northern Bharat border said on Friday [Nov 3]. It is reported that the boy ruler made the decision to flee the capital after four of his Cabinet Ministers were killed while fighting with the tiny Tibetan army to hold back the Communists.

The main body of the Chinese troops was reported less than 150 miles from Lhasa with the big advance patrols as close as 50 miles. Reports from the border city of Kalimpong said that Dalai Lama’s flight had shaken the morale in the Tibetan army.

Meanwhile, informed sources said the Bharati Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is being pressed by his top level advisers to refer the invasion of Tibet to the [UN]. The sources said Pandit Nehru had opposed taking the matter to the Security Council but he is now being urged to do so because of the “insulting, provocative, abrupt and arrogant” Chinese Note charging Bharat with meddling in something that was not its business. — News agencies

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2025