Sonam Wangchuk’s wife moves SC against NSA detention

Ladakh climate activist Sonam Wangchuk’s wife Gitanjali Angmo has moved the Supreme Court seeking his immediate release from detention under the National Security Act (NSA), terming it “illegal, arbitrary and unconstitutional”.

Angmo contended that the detention order violated her husband’s fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 14 (right to equality), 19 (right to various freedoms), 21 (right to life and liberty) and 22 (protection against arrest and detention in certain cases) of the Constitution.

Detained on September 26 under Section 3(2) of the NSA two days after the September 24 clashes between protesters demanding statehood and the Sixth Schedule status for Ladakh and the police, Wangchuk is lodged at Jodhpur jail in Rajasthan. Four persons had died and nearly 100 others were injured in the violence.

Alleging that she had not been given a copy of the detention order in violation of rules, and that she had had no contact so far with her husband, Angmo questioned the Ladakh administration’s decision to invoke the NSA. The administration has rejected allegations of a "witch-hunt" or a "smokescreen" operation against Wangchuk.

In her habeas corpus petition, she sought a direction to the administration to “produce Wangchuk before the SC forthwith”. She urged the top court to quash the preventive detention order. She also sought urgent listing of her petition and a direction to authorities to “allow immediate access of the petitioner to her husband, both telephonic and in person”.

Alleging that no grounds of detention had been furnished till date, either to Wangchuk or to his family, his wife contended that she had been “kept under virtual house arrest in Leh, while students and staff of the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh (HIAL), founded by Wangchuk, were facing harassment, intimidation and intrusive investigations”.

“The arbitrary transfer of Wangchuk to Jodhpur, the harassment of students and staff of the HIAL, the virtual house arrest of the petitioner herself and the false propaganda linking Wangchuk to foreign entities clearly demonstrate mala fide state action intended to suppress democratic dissent and peaceful environmental activism,” she submitted.

The arrest has inflicted severe mental pain and anguish on the people of Ladakh, who revered Wangchuk as their leader, the petition stated. “A recent tragic incident has been reported where a member of the Ladakh Buddhist Association died by suicide, allegedly depressed after his detention, underscoring the devastating psychological impact on the community,” the petition maintained.

Angmo sought a direction to the authorities to ensure that Wangchuk was provided with his medicines, clothes, food and other basic necessities forthwith. She also sought a direction to them to place before the top court “the order of detention along with grounds of detention and all records pertaining thereto” as also his medical report.