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Dalai Lama hospitalised, to undergo operation today

AFP

A file photo of the Dalai Lama taken on 30 September 2008 at Tsuglakhang temple in Mcleod Ganj. He has been hospitalised due to abdominal pain and could undergo surgery at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital on 10 October 2008.Tibet Sun/Lobsang Wangyal/India

The Dalai Lama has been hospitalised due to abdominal pain and could undergo surgery on Friday, a senior doctor told AFP, but his spokesman insisted that he was only undergoing “routine tests.”

The spiritual leader was admitted to a state-run New Delhi hospital on Thursday following media reports that abdominal pains for which he had spent four days in a Mumbai hospital in August had recurred.

A senior doctor at New Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, who did not wish to be identified, told AFP that the Dalai Lama, a former Nobel peace Prize winner, had been hospitalised.

“He was admitted when he complained of abdominal pain and now chances are that the Dalai Lama will be operated upon, most probably tomorrow (Friday),” the doctor said.

Hospital chief Nalini Kaul declined to comment on the Dalai Lama’s health or what treatment he would receive but the Press Trust of India, quoting unnamed sources, also said the monk was likely to be operated upon on Friday.

However, a spokesman for the Dalai Lama dismissed the report of surgery and said that the spiritual leader was undergoing “routine tests.”

The Buddhist monk had been scheduled to return to his home-in-exile in northern India on Thursday, but spokesman Tenzin Takhla told AFP that the 73-year-old would now remain in hospital at least until Saturday.

“There is nothing to worry about as His Holiness is undergoing routine tests for which he had to be hospitalised,” Takhla said, rejecting the reports of surgery.

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