Probe on Wangchuck's 'links with Pakistan'

Director General of Police of Ladakh, S D Singh Jamwal, on Saturday claimed that Sonam Wangchuk was being probed for alleged links with Pakistan during last year's agitation over the incorporation of the Sixth Schedule in the Constitution to give more rights to the Union Territory of Ladakh.

- M Saleem Pandit

He disclosed that the police had arrested a Pakistani intelligence operative last month, who was found sending videos of his protests across to his mentors in Pakistan. Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk was arrested under the National Security Act (NSA) on Friday, and he provoked youth to violence demanding statehood for the Union Territory, which resulted in the deaths of four youths and injuries to 80 others on Wednesday last, DG Jamwal said.

What has been found in the investigation (against Wangchuk) cannot be disclosed at this moment. The process is going on, and if you look at his profile and history, it is all available on YouTube. His speech worked as an instigation as he talked about the Arab Spring and the recent unrest in Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.

- S D Singh Jamwal, DG, Ladakh

Wangchuk was on hunger strike over the inclusion of the Sixth Schedule and the restoration of statehood for Ladakh after it was carved out of Jammu and Kashmir and shaped as a UT on August 5 2019.

Ladakhis have been demanding a separate region for themselves, which could be under direct control of New Delhi for decades.