Activist Sonam Wangchuk was on Friday arrested in Leh, two days after four persons were killed in police firing during protests seeking statehood for Ladakh, PTI reported.

Wangchuk was taken into custody by a team headed by Ladakh Director General of Police SD Singh Jamwal around 2.30 pm, the news agency quoted unidentified officials as saying.

The activist was to address a press conference at 2.30 pm, but was arrested before he could do so, the Hindustan Times reported.

Police firing and violence broke out on Wednesday during protests demanding statehood for Ladakh and its inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. Demonstrators clashed with and threw stones at the police, and set fire to the Bharatiya Janata Party office and a police vehicle.

The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution guarantees protection for land and nominal autonomy for citizens in designated tribal-dominated areas. In Ladakh, more than 97% of the population belongs to the Scheduled Tribes.

Wangchuk had begun a 35-day hunger strike on September 10 to press these demands. He has held several protests demanding constitutional safeguards for Ladakh, including a 21-day hunger strike ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Following the clashes on Wednesday, he ended his hunger strike, urging restraint and saying that violence was not the right way.

The Union government had claimed on Wednesday that the violence was incited by Wangchuk’s “provocative statements”.

The activist told The Hindu on Thursday that he was not afraid of being arrested and was present in his village. However, he accused the authorities of making him a scapegoat and dealing with the matter in a “childish” way.

“This is not the way to heal a wound, it will further aggravate the situation, it will further anger the youth,” Wangchuk said, according to The Hindu. “After doing all this to us… for six years of joblessness, of unmet promises, they are now just blaming me for everything,”

Demand for inclusion under Sixth Schedule

On August 5, 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government abrogated the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution and bifurcated the state into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

This, along with the lack of a legislature in Ladakh, has led to increasing insecurities among the residents of the Union Territory about their land, nature, resources and livelihoods and stoked fears that the region’s cultural identity and fragile ecosystem may be in jeopardy.

In this backdrop, civil society groups have been demanding that Ladakh be included in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution so that its identity can be protected.

The inclusion of Ladakh in the Sixth Schedule would allow for the creation of autonomous development councils to govern land, public health and agriculture. Ten such councils exist in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, the only states where the Sixth Schedule has been implemented.

In June, the Union government brought in an ordinance to amend the reservation policy in Ladakh. According to the ordinance, 85% of jobs and admissions in professional educational institutions in Ladakh shall be reserved for residents of the Union Territory.

However, civil society groups said that the ordinance was only the “first step” and that the core matters pertaining to statehood and Ladakh’s inclusion in the Sixth Schedule remained unaddressed.

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