Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has been spearheading the movement seeking statehood and protections under the Sixth Schedule for Ladakh, was detained under the stringent National Security Act (NSA) by the police in Leh on Friday. His wife said he has been taken to a jail in Jodhpur.
The development comes days after the Centre accused him of instigating the violent protests that broke out in Leh on Wednesday, which ended in the death of four individuals in police firing. Fifty people were also injured.
The following day, the Centre revoked the FCRA license of the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh, founded by Wangchuk. The CBI has also initiated an inquiry into the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives Ladakh, which he runs, for alleged FCRA violations.
Wangchuk was scheduled to appear, via Zoom, at a press conference on Friday being organised by the Apex Body, Leh (ABL), which is negotiating with the Centre. Though his secretary joined the link online, Wangchuk did not appear. Sources said Wangchuk was picked up by the police from his village of Uleytokpo.
Wangchuk, who is part of the ABL, was on a hunger strike to press for their demands, which he called off on Wednesday after violence flared. Many of the protesters are believed to have broken off from the peaceful protest after two people fainted during the fast. When they resorted to violence, setting the BJP office on fire, he had appealed for peace.
The Centre had accused Wanghick of inciting the mob by making provocative statements, and said that “several politically motivated individuals” were not happy about the “progress” being made in the talks between the representatives of the government and Ladakh groups, and were trying to sabotage the dialogue process.
Wangchuk has claimed the central government is building a case against him “to bring me under the Public Safety Act and throw me in jail for two years”. “I am ready for that, but Sonam Wangchuk in jail may cause them more problems than a free Sonam Wangchuk,” he said on Thursday.
J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah called the development “unfortunate” and said, “The way the Centre was after him since yesterday, it was obvious.”
Abdullah said the Centre has a problem of making promises it does not fulfil. “Some promises were made to them just like promises were made to us. I am unable to understand what forces the Centre to renege on their promises,” he said. “Before the Hill Council elections, a central minister went to Leh. He made certain promises to make them participate in the elections. The people not only participated in the elections but made the BJP win. But the promises were not fulfilled, just as they didn’t fulfil the promises made to us.”
Former CM Mehbooba Mufti called the development “deeply disturbing”. “A lifelong advocate of peace, sustainability and truth is being punished merely for demanding that promises be kept. Today, Leh is under curfew, a grim echo of what Kashmir has long endured. In today’s India, speaking truth to power comes at a heavy cost. How else could a man who stood for peace and non-violence his entire life end up behind bars?” she said.
ABL alleges bid to ‘suppress our movement’
Addressing a press conference in Leh, ABL co-chairman Chhering Dorje Lakruk also alleged a bid to “tarnish” the agitation. “There is an attempt to give an anti-national colour to the agitation. This is totally wrong,” he said. “When the BJP office was attacked, the youth tore away all the BJP flags, but left the Indian Tricolour alone,” he said.
Lakruk claimed that the police firing on protesters on Wednesday, leaving four dead and scores injured, may also have been part of a strategy to “suppress our movement”.
The ABL said its members would not attend the informal meeting called by the Union Home Ministry in Delhi on Saturday, as they wanted to first pay their respects at the funerals of the four who died.
At the press conference, ABL leaders defended Wangchuk and distanced the organisation from Wednesday’s violent protests. Lakruk said, “There is an allegation that Sonam Wangchuk instigated the crowd. Some are saying it was the Congress. Which of these is true? All this narrative is absolutely false. These (statehood and Sixth Schedule) are genuine demands of the people. When they saw that the government was not serious about it, that it gave such a faraway date (October 6 for formal discussions)… These are unemployed, frustrated youth… all of them are poor, they are not kids of hoteliers and businessmen… What (was seen) was youth anger over these issues, expressed through violence.”
Police have registered four FIRs in connection with Wednesday’s violence. In three of them, former and current Congress councillors are named. The fourth is against unidentified youth, and so far 39 youngsters have been put in judicial custody in connection with it. ABL lawyers said they are in touch with their families to get them bail.
Lakruk also questioned the timing of the withdrawal of the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) licence to Wangchuk’s NGO by the Centre, which was done on Thursday. “If the government had a problem with the NGO’s funding, why is it taking action against him only after he started supporting our agitation? His NGO has been here for 30 years. Didn’t the government know all this? It has so many agencies here.”
Sajjad Kargili of the Kargil Democratic Alliance, who was on his way to Leh, criticised Wangchuk’s arrest on “baseless charges”. “I strongly condemn this brutal crackdown on the Ladakhi leadership. Our struggle for statehood and Sixth Schedule will continue – no detention or witch-hunt can deter us,” Kargili said.
The ABL co-chair also criticised Lieutenant Governor Kavinder Gupta for insinuating a foreign or outsider hand in the agitation and in Wednesday’s violence. “Our LG sahab is saying there is a foreign hand… that people from Doda (in Jammu), Nepal and Bihar were injured. It shows that they were only bystanders. In Leh, so many people come to work from outside. If you fire indiscriminately, outsiders will get hit.”
If, as per Gupta, “people from Doda, Kashmir and Nepal” were creating trouble in Ladakh, Lakruk added: “What was his administration doing? Was it sleeping?… They are saying all this to hide their own mistakes.”
Questioning the police firing on crowds, he said: “The CRPF beat up bystanders brutally. Many are still in hospital. Almost 95% of the injuries are bullet or pellet injuries. Bullets are still lodged in the bodies of some of the injured. This shows that the CRPF used excessive force. We don’t know what they were trying to prove. Earlier, we did not have so much CRPF here. It appears this was a planned deployment to suppress our movement.”
The ABL has demanded a judicial inquiry into the violence, particularly the police firing.
Lakruk said: “We had clearly said that if the government does not call us for negotiations on time, we will launch an agitation. We said this agitation would be peaceful.” He said the ABL protest was going on peacefully on Wednesday, when some youths, angry over the fact that two protesters who had been fasting had taken ill the day before, broke off and went “on a rampage”.
“Normally, not more than 500 people gathered at the protest site, but that day, around 7,500 people came. A large number were youth… While speeches were on, some went out of control. They wanted to go out and demonstrate. We asked them not to. But they were in such large numbers that we could not contain them,” Lakruk said, adding that the protesters ignored appeals for peace by the ABL and Chairman Thupstan Chhewang.
“First they pelted stones at the LAHDC (Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council) office, and then attacked the BJP office. Police also began firing without any prior warning, and did not even use non-lethal weapons. This enraged the youth further. They were not afraid of bullets. Most of them were between 15 and 25 years of age, and all are educated young men. They were unemployed and angry,” Lakruk said.
On the informal talks scheduled in Delhi, Lakruk said, “Those who died have their funerals on September 28 and 29. We will go after that. We will then discuss the agenda for the October 6 meeting. We have made it clear that we only want to discuss statehood and the Sixth Schedule.”
The Sixth Schedule under Article 244 provides for the formation of autonomous administrative divisions with certain legislative and judicial powers within a state. It currently applies to the Northeastern states of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura.
The decision by Sonam Wangchuk to end his hunger strike soon after violence erupted reflects both maturity and high moral responsibility, offering a step toward restoring peace 
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