New Delhi: Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali Angmo, on Wednesday claimed her husband was detained following the violent Ladakh protests because the government did not want him to be involved in statehood talks with Kargil and Leh organisations as it felt he was a “tough nut to crack”.
Leh Apex Body (LAB) and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) are the two main organisations engaged in discussions with the Centre about statehood and the implementation of the Sixth Schedule for Ladakh.
Talking to reporters after filing an amended petition before the Supreme Court, wherein she challenged Wangchuk’s detention under the National Security Act (NSA), Angmo said the climate activist was never “ever” a member of either the LAB or the KDA.
But in July, a “unilateral decision” was taken by both bodies to include him as a member, she said.
Wangchuk was detained under the stringent NSA on September 26, two days after violent protests demanding statehood and Sixth Schedule status for Ladakh left four people dead and 90 injured in the Union Territory. The government had accused him of inciting the violence.
The NSA empowers the Centre and states to detain individuals to prevent them from acting in a manner “prejudicial to the defence of India”. The maximum detention period is 12 months, though it can be revoked earlier.
Angmo claimed the government “fears” that Wangchuk, a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, would be an uncompromising voice and “he would stick to what is best for Ladakh”.
“The government knows that if he is in the picture, the negotiations will be tougher,” she said.
The climate activist’s wife alleged the goal behind his detention was to enable the government to “now come up with suboptimal solutions,” and added that it wants to avoid intense negotiation.
Angmo, herself an educationist, said the government knows her husband won’t “go back with lollipops.”
She also claimed the Centre didn’t want him to be in the meetings because it would become embarrassing for them to explain why they are not allowing him to come to the meetings, so they created all this “smokescreen and drama”.
Angmo, who was provided with the order listing out reasons behind Wangchuk’s detention in Jodhpur prison under the NSA, said the statements attributed to him in the order and cited as reasons behind the September 24 arson “have been either misquoted or taken out of context”.
Those have been fact-checked by various media houses and found to be false, she said.
Wangchuk’s wife said all of the around 10 videos being relied upon to make this entire ground of detention are 14 to 15 months old, or from September 10 or after the violence.
“There is no video which, as they are claiming, is from the ‘anshan’ ground that allegedly led to the violence,” she said.
When asked about the alleged instigating statements cited in the detention order, she said the Nepal and Bangladesh issues that had been mentioned happened three to four months ago, and he was quoting somebody else.
“So, there are two separate incidents: Nepal, Bangladesh; somebody else quoted how revolution is coming there. Sonam was quoting that person and saying that in our case, it will be through peaceful protest.
“So the very videos that they have referred to, if you go through that, after one minute you will see that he’s saying ‘we will not do it that way’. Somebody has said that Nepal and Bangladesh have happened, but we will not do it that way. And we will do a peaceful protest,” Angmo said.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday took on record the amended plea of Angmo challenging the climate activist’s detention and sought the response of the Centre and Union Territory of Ladakh in 10 days.
A bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the UT of Ladakh, to file the response to the amended plea and posted the matter for hearing on November 24.
PTI
