Dozens were injured in the remote Indian region of Ladakh on Wednesday as hundreds of people demanding federal statehood from the Indian government clashed with law enforcement, officials and residents said.
Some protesters threw stones at officers as police tried to stop them from marching in the high-altitude Leh town. Others set ablaze a paramilitary vehicle and the local office of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, police said.
Police fired tear gas and swung batons at the demonstrators, injuring dozens of them, police said. Some among the injured were in critical condition, residents said.
Nestled between India, Pakistan and China, Ladakh was split from Indian-controlled Kashmir after New Delhi removed the disputed region's statehood and semiautonomy in 2019. While restive Kashmir has largely been silenced through a crackdown on any form of dissent and a slew of new laws, demands for political rights in Ladakh have intensified in recent years.
The protests are part of a larger movement in the federally-governed region that seeks statehood and constitutional provisions from the Indian government for autonomy over land and agriculture decisions.
On Wednesday, protests were sparked by a local group’s call for a strike after two of over a dozen residents on a hunger strike for statehood demands collapsed.
Authorities banned assembly of more than five people in Leh district following the clashes.
The region’s representatives have held several rounds of talks with Indian officials without any breakthrough. A fresh round of talks is scheduled between New Delhi and Ladakh representatives on Oct. 6.
Ladakh has faced territorial disputes and suffered the effects of climate change. Shifting weather patterns in the sparsely populated villages altered people’s lives through floods, landslides and droughts.
The rugged region's thousands of glaciers have been receding at an alarming rate, threatening the water supply of millions of people. The melting has been exacerbated by an increase in local pollution that has worsened due to the region’s militarization, further intensified by the deadly military standoff between India and China since 2020.
