Ladakh statehood activist arrested days after violent crackdown by Modi | India
A famous environmentalist was arrested in the front ranks of a protest movement in the Indian Ladakh region due to a wider pressure in the opposition under Prime Minister Narendra modi.
Sonam Wangchuk, an activist, engineer and inventor, pioneered a long agitation against the Modi government and calls Ladakh’s own region to give state and more protection. Friday was arrested to attend a press conference in the afternoon.
The detention came after the demonstrations in the regional capital of Leh became violent on Wednesday. Local offices of Modi’s Bharatia Janata Party (BJP) were among the buildings on fire. Police responded with live ammunition by killing at least four protesters demanding autonomy and state -owned for Ladakh.
Ladakh, who lives high in Himalayan Mountains along the fragile borders with China and Pakistan, has been under the control of the central government since 2019.
The region was part of the province of Jammu and Kashmir before it was unilaterally dissolved by the Modi government and completely controlled by the anger and disappointment of the local population.
The Central Ministry of House accused Wangchuk, who organized a 15 -day hunger strike, of provoking “mafia violence” through the “provocative statements ıyla referring to the Arab Spring and the latest anti -corruption protests in Nepal.
Wangchuk rejected the claim, saying he did not support violence. He claimed that the central government has been a lawsuit against him to “put me in imprisonment for two years”.
Im I’m ready for that, ”he said the night before his arrest. “But Sonam Wangchuk in prison may cause more problems than a free sonam Wangchuk.”
Wangchuk came to the forefront in Ladakh’s struggle for education rights and environmental protection.
He founded an award -winning school as a part of Ladakh’s educational and cultural movement, and the inventor of Ice Stupa, an artificial glacier that helps to storage important water globally. He was also an inspiration for three fools, one of Bollywood’s most popular films.
However, after eliminating the state’s state’s state’s state, the Modi government, and the deadly border conflicts with China, resulted in a great military accumulation and infrastructure in Ladakh, Wangchuk, with a heavy environmental effect, began to lead a movement for the regional autonomy of Ladakh.
He organized repeated protests and hunger strikes, and last year, hundreds of protesters on a 500 mile march from Leh to New Delhi led the government to encourage the government to pay attention to the demands.
Wangchuk claimed that he had routinely arrested activists, environmentalists and the participants of the government during his ten years of ruling ruling and harassed it for keeping up with the BJP government, which often challenged under strict laws.
This week, the Ministry of Interior canceled the record that allowed Wangchuk’s NGO to buy a foreign fund and to take the Ladakh school under a criminal investigation. After criticizing the Modi government, Movement reflects actions against organizations such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace.
