Kathmandu, March 15 (IANS) The Nepal police clashed with hundreds of Tibetan refugees during an anti-China protest rally here Saturday. The protesters tried to make their way to the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu but the police stopped them from marching ahead. The protesting Buddhist Tibetans alleged that Chinese diplomats relayed orders to security forces to assault them.

Though the Himalayan nation had kept a low profile, it announced through the official media Saturday that the route to the Mt. Everest has been frozen indefinitely after anti-China protests rocked the Nepal capital.

The anti-China protests were also held in Lhasa in Tibet and India’s New Delhi March 10, when Tibetans began protests to mark the anniversary of the 1959 failed uprising in Tibet that was brutally put down by the Chinese invaders of Tibet.

The Chinese jitters about Mt. Everest rose due to its fears that Tibetans living in exile could infiltrate the mountaineering expeditions and attempt to reach the Everest summit to raise “Free Tibet” banners, which would be broadcast all over the world with all eyes being on the mountain in spring.

Under Chinese pressure, the new and professedly democratic and independent multi-party of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has stopped nearly 5,000 Tibetan refugees from finding a new home in the US though it has allowed Bhutanese refugees to do so.

It also de-registered a Nepali NGO working for the welfare of Tibetan refugees and recently, in an unprecedented move, raided a UN-supported Tibetan refugee reception centre to arrest a fugitive and hand him over to the Chinese authorities.