New Delhi: Tsewang Rigzin, the Leh correspondent of the popular Jammu-

based daily State Times, was arrested on September 5 on the basis of a

police complaint lodged by the BJP MP Jamyang Tsering Namgyal from
Ladakh.

Rigzin was granted bail the same evening.

In the run-up to the May 6, 2019 Parliamentary elections in Ladakh, which

was won  by Namgyal, Rigzin – as the general secretary of the Leh Press
Club – was instrumental in filing an FIR against the then Jammu and
Kashmir BJP leader Vikram Singh Randhawa for allegedly bribing
journalists at a press meet “to influence the outcome of the Lok Sabha
elections” just a day before the polling day.

Rigzin runs a popular Facebook group, ‘Ladakh in the Media’, which has
about 34,000 members. On September 3, a member, whom the police have
not been able to trace yet, had posted a comment on the BJP
parliamentarian. Police then arrested Rigzin on September 5, citing the fact
that he was the admin of that social media platform.

However, the arrest was said to been made under Section 188 of the Indian
Penal Code which amounts to disobeying a public servant. However,
Rigzin has not been able to access a copy of the complaint yet and told The
Wire that he is unsure if this is indeed the section under which he has been
booked. 

The Wire has so far failed to reach Leh Police for a confirmation on the
section or sections under which the journalist was held on September 5
before he was granted bail on the same day.
 Jamyang Tsering Namgyal with Prakash Javadekar, in 2019. Photo: PIB

Rigzin said that until police brought the post to his notice on September 4,
he had not seen it. He immediately offered to delete it. However, the police
asked him not do so as it would amount to ‘destruction of evidence’. By
then, the police had taken note of the BJP MP’s complaint.

“For a place like Ladakh with barely three lakh people, the reach of the FB
group that I run with around 34,000 members is pretty high. Lot of people
follow it. If something comes on that group, you can say that the whole of
Ladakh will get to know about it,” he said.

“When I approve a person to be a member of the group, I can’t fully verify

in minute details the credentials of a person. I can’t ask them for their
Aadhaar card, for instance. Many members regularly post comments on
what is happening in the state, on the group,” he added.

He told The Wire that on September 4, when he received the call from

police informing him about the comment which led to the complaint, he
offered all help in tracing the person. “It was difficult for police to do this
as that person’s Facebook profile was locked.”

Rigzin received another call from the police on the evening of September 5.
“I was asked to come to the police station regarding the comment of that
member. There, I was told that they would have to arrest me. I could sense
that there was pressure from the top to do so. I understood under what
circumstances the police had to take that step. So I told them to proceed as
per the law. I was arrested and then immediately released on bail,” he said.

“Jamyang Namgyal could have called me about it, instead of going to

police and making it an issue. When I saw the comment, I found it
objectionable too. I would have immediately removed it,” he added.

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Protect Jobs and Land for Locals

The comment alleged that for power, Namgyal would go to any length,
even sell someone from his family. The comment was in response to a
video uploaded by another member on September 1 in which Namgyal
could be seen delivering a fiery speech, back when he was a student leader.
He had commented on the border issue and questioned the then UPA II
government about managing the India-China border.

Namgyal came to prominence in national media after he gave an

impassioned speech in support of the Narendra Modi government’s
decision to read down Article 370 and to made Ladakh a Union Territory
(UT). 

Importantly, Rigzin said that his arrest based on the BJP MP’s complaint
came just two days after he had questioned a resolution taken by the
Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), which is now
run by the BJP.

Rigzin had taken a break from journalism in 2005 to become an LAHDC

member. He remained a member till 2015.

“We in Ladakh are happy that we are now a UT. But that decision has
come without granting any constitutional protection to the tribal people of
Ladakh. So people are very apprehensive about not having any safeguards
to protect their identity and land rights. They are worried that in coming
times, there will be a huge demographic change in Ladakh and they, as
indigenous people, will lose their rights. So there is a popular demand for
bringing Ladakh under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution,” he said.

“The BJP has been saying that it would bring in a domicile law to protect
the rights of the tribal population. But people have rejected it; they are for
Sixth Schedule. Several political leaders, including from the BJP, have quit
the party and have come together as a non-political group to also demand it
from the Centre.”
He added, “The general council of LAHDC, which now comprises of BJP
members, passed a resolution on September 3 saying that they demand
either a Sixth Schedule, or a domicile law, or implementation of Article
371 of the Constitution to protect the rights of the local people. To that, I,
as a former member of the LAHDC, objected because of the multiple
options it had given to the Centre.” 

In a video that Rigzin posted on Facebook on September 7 narrating the

turn of events leading to his arrest on September 5, he said, “I questioned
why LAHDC was so indecisive to have not been able to focus on one
proposal.” 

He said, “I have nothing against the BJP or any other party. Still, I thought
of recording the video to put out the chronology of events in the public
domain because I felt I shouldn’t keep quiet about it. Curiously, the
member [of his Facebook group] who had made that comment also can’t be
traced. Who knows if someone had knowingly done that to put me in
trouble? Today, if my voice is silenced, tomorrow it may happen to
someone else and that voice too may have to remain silent. I had offered to
delete the post and still action was taken against me. Had I refused to do so,
then such action would be understandable but I was ready to cooperate.”

On being asked about the FIR just before the May 2019 parliamentary
polls, Rigzin said, “I was instrumental in filing that FIR. After we filed the
case, some of our media friends had suggested that we shouldn’t go ahead
because we might get into trouble. I said we should not withdraw it as it
was wrong to try and bribe journalists. Later, when we were still a part of
Jammu and Kashmir, Ravinder Rana, the president of the then state BJP, in
an interview, accused me of making it an issue. So, I was a marked man.”

As to what became of the case, he said, “Nothing has happened. Though,

the case is not closed, we have not withdrawn the FIR.”

Meanwhile, the Indian Journalists Union, in a statement, condemned the

arrest of Rigzin, who is also the general secretary of Ladakh Journalists
Union. The statement which called the action against Rigzin “illegal and
arbitrary,” said, “The Delhi High Court, in a ruling in 2016, made it clear
that the administrator of a social media group couldn’t be held responsible
for a post by one of its members.”
Note: This article has been updated with the fact that ‘Ladakh in the
Media’ is a Facebook group. An earlier version had erroneously identified
it as a Facebook page. An erroneous mention of  Namgyal having studied
at JNU has also been removed.