Ladakh-based climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, along with several protesters who were part of the ‘Chalo Dilli’ march, were kept in police custody on Tuesday night, more than 24 hours after they were detained at the Singhu border on Monday night.
The protesters were detained at the Bawana, Alipur and Narela police stations, as well as the nearby Arya Samaj Temple. Police said about 150 people were detained Monday night, but several were released within hours. About 80 are still in custody, the police said.
The Delhi Police arrested the protesters for allegedly violating the prohibitory orders issued hours before the group reached the Delhi border on Monday.
Speaking to the Indian Express newspaper, the protester said, “We were arrested last night at around 10:00 from the Singu border while traveling by bus to Delhi… a change of clothes.”
Delhi Chief Minister Atishi tried to meet Wangchuk at the police station but was denied entry. Atishi entered X on Tuesday afternoon and attacked Lieutenant-Governor VK Saxena, who is in charge of law and order and police in Delhi.
Ladakh-based climate activist Sonam Wangchuk (Express Photo)
“I came to Bawana police station to meet Sonam Wangchuk ji and 150 brothers and sisters from Ladakh. The Delhi Police did not allow me to meet them. LG sahab is said to have called and said… This idiot is not right. Sonam Wangchuk ji and the people of Ladakh are also fighting against the rule of LG, they are fighting for full status of Ladakh. The people of Delhi stand with the people of Ladakh. LG rule should end in Ladakh, LG rule should end in Delhi,” he wrote.
Wangchuk’s march aims to raise awareness about climate change and its impact, especially in the Himalayas and the Ladakh region. He also demanded Sixth Schedule status for Ladakh, a Union Territory. The Sixth Schedule deals with the administration of tribal areas in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram as “independent states and autonomous regions”.
Extending support to Wangchuk’s cause for Ladakh statehood, opposition leaders like Congress’s Rahul Gandhi and AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal drew parallels between the arrests of activists and farmers who were stopped at Delhi’s borders during the farm law protests.
Kejriwal, in a statement, said, “Sometimes farmers are blocked from entering Delhi, and sometimes it is people from Ladakh. Is Delhi a personal space? Delhi is the capital of the nation, and everyone has the right to come here. This is absolutely wrong. Why are people so afraid of it?” unarmed and peaceful?”
Gandhi called the arrest “unacceptable”. “The arrest of Sonam Wangchuk ji and hundreds of Ladakhis who are peacefully marching for natural and constitutional rights is unacceptable. Why are senior citizens locked up at the Delhi border for advocating for the future of Ladakh? ” he wrote on X.
The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha also criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Modi ji, like farmers, this chakravyuh will be broken, so will your ego. You have to listen to the voice of Ladakh,” he wrote.
The BJP, on the other hand, described the criticism of the Congress as “extreme hypocrisy”. Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar said, “I don’t know the facts. I will have to look at the facts… If Rahul Gandhi has comments to make, why (does he) maintain conspicuous silence when cartoonists are being picked up in Kolkata and a cartoonist is being arrested in Tamil Nadu?”
A Jadavpur University professor and his neighbor were arrested in West Bengal in 2012 for posting a cartoon depicting Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on social media. In 2017, a freelance cartoonist was arrested in Tamil Nadu for allegedly depicting the then minister K Palaniswami in a caricature.
On Monday, the police imposed restrictions on gatherings of more than five people between till October 5 in three states – North, Central and New Delhi – and all police station authorities in Delhi’s borders, citing “communal tension” over the Waqf Amendment Bill. elections in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, among other things.