Jigme Sangpo, a teacher by profession, was detained after failing to punish a student who wrote the slogan “Beat Mao” (མ་འུ་ཀྲུ་ཞི་གཏོར་དགོས།) on a school wall. He was initially held for three years, during which he was repeatedly interrogated, and was subsequently sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment.

On 6 December 1991, during an inspection visit by a delegation from the Swiss Embassy, prisoners shouted slogans calling for Tibetan independence. In retaliation, prison authorities subjected the inmates to severe beatings and torture, resulting in the death of one prisoner.