Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, at the forefront of the movement seeking statehood and protections under the Sixth Schedule for Ladakh, was detained under the stringent National Security Act (NSA) by the police in Leh on Friday (September 26). According to his wife, he has been taken to a jail in Jodhpur.

The Centre had previously held him responsible for instigating the violent protests that broke out in Leh on Wednesday, in which four persons were killed in police firing, and 50 were injured.

The use of the NSA has brought focus back on one of India’s most stringent preventive detention laws. Invoked in the past against separatists, gangsters and radical preachers, the NSA empowers governments to act pre-emptively against individuals seen as a threat to public order or national se

See Full Page