Ladakh statehood activist Sonam Wangchuk, who faces allegations of inciting a mob with provocative statements, has been arrested a day after he said he would be “happy to be arrested anytime for this cause”.
He has been charged under the stringent National Security Act (NSA), government sources said. This law provides for long preventive detention without any scope for bail. He is likely to be moved out of Ladakh, reports NDTV.
The government also snapped internet services following the activist’s arrest to prevent the spread of misinformation.
The arrest also comes a day after the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) cancelled the registration of Wangchuk’s non-profit Students Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL) to receive funds from abroad under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act or FCRA, 2010.
The activist from the mountainous region who won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2018 has denied all the allegations made by the Centre and the Union Territory’s administration, following the violence two days ago that left four dead and over 50 including security personnel injured.
He told NDTV on Thursday that his non-profit did not take foreign contributions, but has done business transactions with the UN, Swiss and Italian organisations and paid all taxes.
“… They mistook it as foreign contributions. I consider it a mistake on their [Centre’s] part and therefore I don’t mind it. But that’s what was thought of as a foreign contribution. It is not,” he told NDTV’s Padmaja Joshi on Thursday.
Ladakh’s gradual swing from cheering on becoming a Union Territory in 2019 after the Centre scrapped special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution, to the current tension due to demand for statehood, has led to speculation that foreign hands and local vested interests could be involved in engineering the crisis.
However, discontentment has been brewing for the last few years over a perceived political vacuum under the Lieutenant Governor. This factor led to the coming together of political and religious groups from Buddhist-majority Leh and Muslim-majority Kargil under joint platforms to raise their demands.
The Centre said Wangchuk did not call off his fast despite knowing that the government has been actively engaged with Apex Body Leh (ABL) and Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) on the same issues.
