Activist Sonam Wangchuk arrested in Leh

Leh: Police on Friday arrested climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, two days after protests demanding Ladakh’s statehood and Sixth Schedule status left four people dead and 90 injured in the Union Territory.

Wangchuk was taken into custody by a police party led by Ladakh Police chief S D Singh Jamwal at 2:30 pm, the officials said, adding that he has been shifted out of Ladakh.

While there was no official word on the charges pressed against Wangchuk, sources within the Ladakh administration indicated that the stringent National Security Act (NSA) has been invoked against the climate activist.

The administration also snapped mobile internet services in the Leh area as a precautionary measure.

Wangchuk, a leading voice for the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), has been spearheading the five-year-long agitation for statehood and constitutional safeguards for the residents of Leh and Kargil, which form part of the Ladakh Union Territory carved out from erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019.

The Centre has strongly blamed him for inciting the recent violence but Wangchuk denied all the allegations.

“To say it was instigated by me is to find a scapegoat, rather than addressing the core of the problem, and this will lead us nowhere,” Wangchuk said on Thursday, adding that the violence was a symptom of frustrated youth.

The arrest came a day after the Union home ministry cancelled the FCRA licence of the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL), an organisation founded by Wangchuk, citing alleged financial discrepancies and a fund transfer deemed to be against “national interest”.