Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk and 150 other protestors from Ladakh who are in detention in Delhi continued their indefinite fast on Wednesday, saying that they find their rights “trampled upon”, PTI reported.
They had launched the fast on Tuesday at the police stations where they were held after being detained at Delhi’s Singhu border the previous night. They were marching to the national capital to demand constitutional safeguards for Ladakh.
While Wangchuk has been kept at the Bawana police station, several others have been detained at other locations.
The Delhi Police said that Wangchuk and others were released on Tuesday night. But they were detained again because they wanted to continue their march towards central Delhi, PTI quoted an unidentified police officer as saying.
On Wednesday morning, Jigmat Paljor, the coordinator of the civil society group Leh Apex Body, said that their detention was illegal.
“We, the ‘padyatris’, find ourselves in an alarming situation,” PTI quoted him as saying. “We have been detained for over 24 hours. This detention is illegal, as the 24-hour period has elapsed, and we must be produced before a magistrate.”
He added: “Last night, the police attempted to forcibly relocate us to an unknown location, but we stood our ground in resistance.”
The phones of the protestors had been confiscated, said Paljor.
On Wednesday, protestors blocked NH 1 at Fiang town near Leh, NDTV reported.
The march had started from Leh on September 1 and was scheduled to culminate at Rajghat, the memorial for Mahatma Gandhi, on October 2. It was organised by the civil society groups Leh Apex Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance.
They are demanding statehood for Ladakh, its inclusion under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, job reservation for locals and two Lok Sabha and one Rajya Sabha seats for the region.
The Sixth Schedule under Article 244 (Administration of Scheduled Areas and Tribal Areas) of the Constitution of India guarantees certain protections for land and a nominal autonomy for citizens in designated tribal areas. In Ladakh, more than 97% of the population belongs to the Scheduled Tribes.
On August 5, 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government rescinded the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution and bifurcated the state into the Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and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.
Wangchuk had also undertaken a 21-day hunger strike ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in March demanding statehood for Ladakh and the protection of the Himalayan ecology.
Also read: Explained: Why Ladakh is up in arms again
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