24 hours on, Sonam Wangchuk still under police detention; CM not allowed to meet him

Delhi Police had detained the protesters for allegedly violating prohibitory orders that were passed a few hours before the contingent reached Delhi’s border on Monday.

Speaking to The Indian Express, a protester said, “We were detained last night around 10 pm from Singhu border while we were travelling in a bus to Delhi… There are people of all age groups, including young students… We do not even have a change of clothes.”

Delhi Chief Minister Atishi tried to meet Wangchuk at the police station but was not allowed to enter. Atishi took to X on Tuesday afternoon and launched an attack on Lieutenant-Governor V K Saxena, who is responsible for law and order and policing in Delhi.

Ladakh-based climate activist Sonam Wangchuk (Express Photo)

“I reached Bawana police station to meet Sonam Wangchuk ji and 150 brothers and sisters of Ladakh. Delhi police did not let me meet them. It is being said that L-G sahab called and said so… This dictatorship is not right. Sonam Wangchuk ji and the people of Ladakh are also fighting against L-G rule, fighting to get full statehood status for Ladakh. The people of Delhi stand with the people of Ladakh. L-G rule should end in Ladakh, L-G rule should also end in Delhi,” she wrote.

Wangchuk’s march aims to raise awareness about climate change and its impact, particularly in the Himalayas and the Ladakh region. He has also demanded Sixth Schedule status for Ladakh, a Union Territory. The Sixth Schedule pertains to the administration of tribal areas in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram as “autonomous districts and autonomous regions”.

Extending support to Wangchuk’s cause of demanding statehood for Ladakh, Opposition leaders like Congress’s Rahul Gandhi and AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal drew parallels between the activists’ detention and the farmers who were stopped at the Delhi borders during the farm law protests.

Kejriwal, in a statement, said, “Sometimes farmers are stopped from entering Delhi, and other times it’s the people of Ladakh. Is Delhi someone’s personal property? Delhi is the nation’s capital, and everyone has the right to come here. This is completely wrong. What are they so afraid of from unarmed, peaceful people?”

Gandhi called the detention “unacceptable”. “The detention of Sonam Wangchuk ji and hundreds of Ladakhis peacefully marching for environmental and constitutional rights is unacceptable. Why are elderly citizens being detained at Delhi’s border for standing up for Ladakh’s future?” he posted on X.

The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Modi ji, like with the farmers, this chakravyuh will be broken, and so will your arrogance. You will have to listen to Ladakh’s voice,” he wrote.

The BJP, meanwhile, described the Congress’ condemnation as “hypocrisy in extreme”. Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar said, “I don’t know the facts. I will have to check the facts… If Rahul Gandhi has a comment to make, why (does) he maintain a conspicuous silence when cartoonists are picked up in Kolkata and a satirist is jailed in Tamil Nadu?”

A Jadavpur University professor and his neighbour were arrested in West Bengal in 2012 for posting on social media a cartoon showing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. In 2017, a freelance cartoonist was arrested in Tamil Nadu for allegedly depicting the then chief minister K Palaniswami in an obscene manner in a caricature.

On Monday, the police had imposed curbs on gatherings of over five persons between until October 5 in three districts — North, Central and New Delhi — along with all police station jurisdictions on Delhi’s borders, citing “communal tensions” over the Waqf Amendment Bill and elections in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, among other things.