Leh (Ladakh): Slouched on a hospital bed, teenager Samphael (name changed) grimly recalls the events of September 24 which landed him at Sonam Narboo Memorial hospital in Leh with a fractured leg. A bullet chipped away a part of his fibula as it travelled though his limb before exiting.
An undergraduate student aspiring for a government job, Samphael was among thousands of youngsters who responded to the call of the Leh Apex Body and showed up at the Martyrs Park in Ladakh’s capital city on the morning of September 24, a Wednesday, to express solidarity with activists, two of whom had to be hospitalised on the evening of September 23, after their health deteriorated
The hunger strike seeking special constitutional protections for Ladakh by a group of activists led by educator and Magsaysay Award winner Sonam Wangchuk had entered its 15th day on Wednesday and the deteriorating condition of the participants had ignited passions.
“Thousands showed up and it was a peaceful protest,” Samphael, who followed the call to “protect the future of Ladakh” , told The Wire at the hospital.
At around 3 pm, Samphael heard blasts going off outside the park, “When I came out, I saw police and CRPF personnel directly firing at protesters. Even the elderly and women were not spared”.
Photo: Jehangir Ali.
The Wire spoke with at least five eyewitnesses, adult men and men aged 18-55 years, to piece together the events that led to the clashes in which four civilian protesters were killed and at least 90 protesters, mostly minors, were injured.
The director general of Ladakh police S.D.M. Jamwal said that 35 personnel of Ladakh police and Central Reserve Paramilitary Forces were injured.
These eyewitnesses told The Wire that the spark of violence was lit at around 11.30 am when a group of protesters, despite objections of the elders who were fasting inside the park along with Wangchuk took out a procession and marched towards Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) chairman’s office and the civil secretariat housing the region’s higher bureaucracy.
However, upon approaching the three-storey council office, they were met with heavy deployment of security forces, prompting violent clashes and stone pelting.
Some 400 metres away, protesters laid a siege around the BJP’s Ladakh office.
“A civilian protester was shot in the head outside the council office,” Namgyal (name changed), an eyewitness who was part of the protest, told The Wire, “This enraged the youngsters even more”.
Videos shot by bystanders around the BJP office showed protesters did not face any resistance from security personnel. It appeared as if the security personnel had fled from the otherwise heavily barricaded building on Choklamsar Road.
However, DGP Jamwal claimed that four women Ladakh police personnel had been trapped inside the office when it was set on fire. “CRPF personnel deployed for the security of the building were badly beaten up. A CRPF man is admitted at the military hospital with grievous spinal injury,” he said.
A video, verified by The Wire, shows a protester pulling down the saffron party flag from the three-storey building amid cheering and hooting while the national flag by its side was left untouched.
Outside the BJP office, protesters specifically targeted at least four posters from the 2024 parliamentary election featuring prime minister Narendra Modi whose face on posters appeared to have been a repeated target, leaving small gouges on the concrete wall behind.
PM Narendra Modi’s poster is seen destroyed in part in Leh, after the protests. Photo: Jehangir Ali.
As the saffron office in Ladakh went up in flames and a police van on the road outside was also torched, eyewitnesses said a bigger mob closed in around the council office and the headquarter of the civil administration which was also set on fire.
By 3 pm, locals said that the mob had returned to Martyrs Park and mixed with protesters, creating an ideal situation for a final showdown.
DGP Jamwal said that police had intelligence inputs about the possibility of law and order breakdown due to which security forces were deployed across the city in advance.
As the day began drawing to a close, activists started calling off their fasts and some, including women, were exiting the park. At the same time, several dozen Ladakh police and paramilitary troopers moved in, purportedly to clear the park of the protesters. Chaos broke out.
“Everything was peaceful,” said Stanzin Otsal, a former Indian army soldier from Leh who was on a one-day fast at the park for the third time since the hunger strike started on September 10.
Stanzin Otsal. Photo: Jehangir Ali.
Armed with automatic rifles, pellet guns, teargas and stun grenade launchers and fibreglass batons, security forces charged at protesters who resorted to stone pelting. As Otsal and Samphael were stepping out of the park, there was heavy firing, they said.
Samphael recalled at the hospital on September 26: “Wails of the injured and teargas smoke filled the air. They (security personnel) were aiming guns directly at the protesters…Some 30 people were injured in front of my eyes”.
It is believed that most casualties and injuries of civilians took place outside the very park where a popular chapter of democracy – scripted over the last five years with peaceful protests by Wangchuk and others – ended up as one of the bloodiest in Ladakh’s history.
“They barged into the park and cleared the protest site by firing teargas shells,” said Samphael.
“They didn’t show any restraint and fired directly. They could have used water cannons or rubber bullets but they used pellets and real bullets,” Norbu (name changed), a young Leh resident admitted at the SNM hospital said.
DGP Jamwal, however, defended the action of security forces, saying that they opened fire in self-defence, “If they hadn’t acted in time, the whole city would have been set on fire”.
‘If we don’t stand up today…’
Sajjad Hussain, a Kargil-based activist and member of the Kargil Democratic Alliance, demanded that the government order an “impartial probe” into the conduct of security forces who handled the protests and that those guilty should be held accountable.
Recuperating at the hospital’s ‘Eye Ward’ with a leg fractured by a bullet, Otsal, who has two young children, said that he has defended the nation and the agitation led by the Leh Apex Body and Kargil Democratic Alliance for sixth schedule and statehood for Ladakh among other issues since 2020 felt to him like “a public service”.
Ladakh’s residents have been left without a say in their future after its separation from Jammu and Kashmir and demotion into a Union territory without a legislature in 2019.
“Wangchuk saheb woke up Ladakhis,” Otsal said, “Our land is our only asset and we are only demanding our rights. We are doing it to protect Ladakh. If we don’t stand up today, we will lose our future”.
On the same day he said these, Wangchuk was arrested under the National Security Act.
Samphael said that the BJP won elections in Ladakh after 2019 on the promise of granting sixth schedule status and statehood.
In its manifestos, the saffron party, among other issues, promised in the 2020 local council polls of Ladakh and the 2019 parliamentary election that it will provide constitutional safeguards by including Ladakh in the sixth schedule of the Constitution.
However, as years passed and the cold desert turned into a prized possession with its potential for solar and geothermal energy, the saffron party seems to have realised that true democracy will leave the government at the mercy of local councils in cases of clearances for leasing out land to big corporations.
Besides, the conflict between land rights of locals and strategic needs of the armed forces have often played out in the eco-sensitive Himalayan region.
Samphael recalled the Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s 2023 budget speech in which she announced a multi-billion dollar solar power plant for Ladakh.
“A rich man will build the project while the land will be snatched from Ladakhis. Since we became a UT, big ticket projects have been announced to showcase the development in Ladakh but they have only benefited a chosen few,” he said.
Norbu said that Ladakhis have been deprived of a say in their future, “People like Wangchuk educated us how our land and our culture was important for our survival. But the government tried to pressurise him by taking back the land of his university,” he said.
In a region grappling with one of the lowest employment rates, the ongoing protest was a ray of hope for many youngsters.
“More than 47,000 aspirants recently applied for some 500 odd jobs which were advertised after years. The government in Ladakh doesn’t work for the benefit of people. It works for Narendra Modi and (Union home minister) Amit Shah”.
The violent end of a peaceful protest has touched a raw nerve in Ladakh. Otsal sounds more disappointed by the treatment meted out to his fellow protesters, including elderly and woman, than he is concerned about the bullet injury to his leg.
“What they (security forces) did was completely wrong and illegal. But it will not suppress our legitimate demands. I am pursuing a peaceful path and I would gladly give my life for the cause of Ladakh if necessary,” said the former army soldier.
The article appeared in thewire
