Foreign currency: Buddhist leader chargesheeted

Dharamsala (Himachal Pradesh), Dec 8 (IBNS): Tibetan religious head and the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje was named in a chargesheet filed by the police in a Himachal Pradesh court on Wednesday after foreign currency worth $1.35 million was seized from his headquarters in North India.

Apart from the Buddhist leader, who is the 10th accused to be named in the chargesheet, three of his followers were also named by the police in its chargesheet filed before Una Chief Judicial Magistrate Rajesh Tomar.

Karmapa was charged by the police of conspiracy and knowledge of undeclared money, while his three followers face more charges that include cheating and forgery of documents.

The police filed the chargesheet against the four on Wednesday after concluding investigation into the foreign currency case.

The money was recovered during a raid on the Karmapa´s monastery by police on January 28. The followers of Karmapa said that the money police had recovered was donated by his followers.

The amount of cash that was recovered from the monastery included large sums of Chinese yuan and Indian rupees, media reports said.

Twenty-six-years-old Karampa, the spiritual head of the Karma Kagyu school, is considered by many of his followers as one of the potential successor of Dalai Lama as the leader of Tibetan Buddhism.