Residents close to the Lagyab Monastery in Machen county, in Qinghai's Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, claimed yesterday that authorities had stopped them worshipping at the site since early this month, well before the riot that broke out on Saturday.
A Tibetan man said: 'They warned us not to leave home because they don't want us to speak to outsiders.'
His wife said they heard something had happened at the monastery in the past few weeks but knew no details.
'In fact we are not even supposed to tell you that much.'
The monastery, referred to as Ragya in the Amdo dialect, is the second-biggest Buddhist monastery in Qinghai and is under the protection of the province's Cultural Relics Preservation Unit, according to the Berlin-based Tibet Heritage Fund and the Golog tourism bureau. Founded in 1769, it was once a temporary home for the Panchen Lama. More than 1,500 monks lived there in its golden era, but now it has only 500.
Relations between the monastery and the Dalai Lama have been close because its founder, Arou Geshe Gyentsen Ozer, a famous living buddha, was sent to Lagyab township by the seventh Dalai Lama, Kelsang Gyatso, to build the monastery in the mid-18th century.