Beijing, Feb 3 (PTI) Indian diplomats will not attend Friday's mega opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which is already facing a diplomatic boycott by the US and allies over their allegations of human rights violations in China's restive region of Xinjiang.

The fortnight-long Winter Olympics will be declared open by President Xi Jinping amid the US, European Union and several western countries' diplomatic boycott of the opening ceremony and the threat of COVID-19 cases.

Also Read | DD Sports Not To Live Telecast Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

Ahead of Friday's event, Xi said China will do its best to deliver "streamlined, safe and splendid" Olympic Winter Games.

In his video address to the opening ceremony of the 139th session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Xi said, “China will do its best to deliver to the world a streamlined, safe and splendid Games, and act on the Olympic motto 'Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together”.

Also Read | IOC President Thomas Bach To Meet Peng Shuai at Beijing Winter Olympics 2022.

Chinese officials were hopeful that Indian diplomats will attend the opening and closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics after the joint communique of the Foreign Ministers of the Russia, India and China (RIC) held on November 6 last year said “the Ministers expressed their support to China to host Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games”.

But China in a provocative move on Wednesday fielded Qi Fabao, the regimental commander of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), who was injured during the June 2020 border skirmish with Indian soldiers in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh, as a torchbearer for the Games Torch Relay.

Qi's participation was widely publicised by the official media here.

Following this, India on Thursday announced that its chargé d'affaires in the Indian embassy in Beijing will not attend the opening or closing ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics over China honouring a military commander involved in the Galwan Valley clashes as its torchbearer for the mega sporting event.

In New Delhi, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi described the Chinese action of honouring the commander as "regrettable".

It has been officially clarified in Beijing that no one from the Embassy of India will attend the event.

The charge d'affaires at the embassy is the senior-most diplomat at present as ambassador-designate Pradeep Kumar Rawat is yet to take charge.

However, the six-member contingent taking part in the Winter Olympics will take part along with sportspersons from other nations in the opening ceremony.

Jammu and Kashmir skier Arif Khan is the only athlete from the country to have qualified this time to take part in the Beijing Winter Olympics in which 2,871 athletes from 91 countries including US and EU will take part in 109 events.

Besides the diplomatic boycott, the COVID-19 too posed a threat to the game as 55 new Covid-19 infections were found among Olympic Games-related personnel on February 2, according to the chair of the Beijing 2022 medical expert panel.

The Indian contingent taking part in the Beijing Winter Olympics heaved a sigh of relief as the Manager, Mohammad Abbas Wani, tested negative for COVID-19, clearing his participation in the Games, head of the Indian delegation Harjinder Singh said.

Wani, who tested positive after landing in Beijing, has been cleared for participation after he tested negative twice, Chef de Mission of the Indian contingent Harjinder Singh told PTI here on Thursday.

Beijing is hosting the Winter Olympics amidst a diplomatic boycott by the US, European Union and several western countries over their allegations of human rights violations in Xinjiang, including the incarceration of over a million Uygur Muslim men and women in camps.

The US, EU and a host of western countries announced the boycott of the opening ceremony by their leaders and diplomats to highlight allegations of human rights violations against Uygur Muslims in the resource-rich region of Xinjiang.

China denies the allegations but defends the camps, describing the facilities as re-education centres aimed at de-radicalising sections of the Uyghur Muslim population from extremism and separatism campaign carried out by the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM).

Defying the boycott call, 32 world leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, besides UN Secretary-General António Guterres are due to attend the opening ceremony to show solidarity with Beijing.

Ahead of the visit to Beijing, Putin termed the boycott as an “attempts by a number of countries to politicise sports for their selfish interests.

"This is fundamentally wrong and contrary to the very spirit and principles of the Olympic Charter,” Putin said in an article carried by state-run Xinhua news agency here on Thursday.

Prime Minister Khan, the lone head of the government attending the event from South Asia, gave a clean chit to the Chinese government over the human rights allegations against Uygurs, saying that charges are found to be not true.

"There is a lot of criticism of the treatment of Uygurs by China in the West. But our Ambassador went there and he sent information that it is not actually true on the ground,” he told Chinese journalists in an interview last Saturday ahead of his visit to Beijing.

Beijing, which hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008, is the first city in the world to have held both versions of the Games.

The Winter Olympics which will be held from February 4 to 20 will be followed by the winter Paralympics from March 4 to 13.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)