A grieving father in Ladakh on Sunday wondered whether the Chinese troops who killed 20 Indian soldiers at Galwan were as brutal as the men who shot his son during the statehood violence in Leh on Wednesday.

Both the father and his slain son — himself a father of four — had served in the army for decades, the father retiring as an honorary captain while the son was a Kargil war veteran.

Tsewang Tharchin, 46, is believed to have been shot dead by the security forces, made up of Ladakh Police and the CRPF.

“Those who shot my son are worse than the Chinese,” Tsering Namgyal told The
Telegraph over the phone from Skurbuchan village in Leh.

“The Chinese did not fire but used batons (and rods) to kill them (in Galwan) but in (Leh) they used bullets.”

Namgyal said Tharchin was badly beaten before being shot.

“There are marks of beatings on his body everywhere. He was then shot, while he lay on the ground, from behind, the bullet piercing his heart and lungs before exiting through his shoulder…. Pakistani bullets could not kill him but our own bullets did,” he said.

Tharchin’s killing has brought the spotlight on the region’s large community of ex-servicemen, which has long formed the backbone of India’s defence against China and Pakistan and is seen as increasingly sympathetic to the demand for statehood and Sixth Schedule status.

Namgyal said his son’s death had deeply angered ex-servicemen as well as the serving soldiers from his unit, the famed Ladakh Scouts. “People from his unit came here and grieved over his death,” he said.

Tharchin is survived by his wife and four children. He has a daughter and a son studying in “military schools” in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Namgyal said Tharchin had served at the Siachen glacier and other tough locations, and was proud of his exploits during the 1999 Kargil war.

“He was part of the troops who retook the Dhalungba post from Pakistan and unfurled our national flag on it,” Namgyal, who had himself served on the China border in Ladakh and Pakistan frontier in Kashmir, said.

Tharchin was among four people killed, allegedly in firing by the security forces. The other three are Jigmet Dorjay, 25, Stanzin Namgyal, 23, and Rinchen Dadul, 20.

Two of them were cremated on Sunday while the other two, including Tharchin, will be cremated on Monday.

Participation in the last rites was restricted to family and acquaintances on Sunday, with the public kept out by the curfew-like restrictions in the town, local people said.

Namgyal said Tharchin had been fasting in Leh, to press the Sixth Schedule demand, the day he died.

“The crowd at the event was mixed and included ex-servicemen,” he said.

Namgyal said Ladakhis feared that in the absence of Sixth Schedule protection, outsiders would take their land and jobs.

Ladakh, with an area of nearly 60,000sqkm, has a population of less than 3 lakh.

The Ladakh Scouts are a specialised mountain infantry regiment of the army, known for their skill in high-altitude and cold-weather warfare.

The regiment has five battalions, together accounting for 4,000 to 5,000 men, drawn primarily from Ladakhi communities. Their bravery has earned them the sobriquet of “Snow Leopards” or “Snow Warriors”.

Wangchuk wife

Arrested activist and agitation leader Sonam Wangchuk’s wife Gitanjali Angmo has denied the police allegations of “Pakistan links” and financial irregularities against
her husband.

She told PTI that Wangchuk had been protesting in the “most Gandhian way possible” and that the “situation had escalated” on Wednesday because of the CRPF’s actions.

Arrested under the National Security Act, which allows detention without bail for up to a year, Wangchuk has been lodged in a jail in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.

Skurbuchun councilor Lundup Dorjai, who described Tharchin as a friend, said Ladakhis across professions wanted Sixth Schedule protections for Ladakh. He said one of the closest aides to Wangchuk is a former soldier.

Leh Bar Association President Mohammad Shafi said at least one of the 50 men arrested during the crackdown following the violence is a retired soldier. Shafi and some other lawyers are fighting their cases.

Shafi said those arrested include former MLA Deldean Namgyal; Congress councillors Standzin Tsebag and Smalna Dorjey; the vice-president of the Ladakh Buddhist Association, Rigzin Dorjey, and its women’s wing president Kunzes Dolma; Leh
Apex Body (the agitation spearhead) coordinator Jigmet Paljor; Anjuman Moin-
ul Islam youth president Irfan Bari, and Anjuman Imamia youth president Imtiyaz Hussain.

Many of them are believed to have voluntarily surrendered before the police after learning that FIRs were being lodged against them.

Ladakh police chief S.D. Singh Jamwal had on Saturday said the forces had fired in self-defence after a mob of 5,000 to 6,000 threatened the lives of officials, police and CRPF personnel stationed at the Leh Hill Development Council.