'Open to dialogue any time', says Home Ministry after Leh Apex Body withdraws from scheduled talks on October 6

Sonam Wangchuk

After Leh Apex Body (LAB) announced it will not engage in discussions with the High Powered Committee of the Union Home Ministry until peace returns to Ladakh, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a statement to say that the government has always been open for dialogues at any time.

"The Government has always been open for dialogues on Ladakh matters with the Apex Body Leh (ABL) and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) at any time. We would continue to welcome discussions with ABL and KDA through the HPC on Ladakh or any other suitable platform, Home Ministry said in the statement.

It said that the dialogue mechanism established with ABL and KDA through the High Powered Committee (HPC) on Ladakh has yielded good results to date in the form of increased reservations to the Scheduled Tribes of Ladakh, providing women's reservations in Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils (LAHDCs) and protection to local languages.

LAB Chairman Thupstan Chhewang during a press conference said that the body will not participate in any talks with the government until normalcy is restored in the UT

“We have unanimously agreed that the situation that is prevailing in Ladakh, keeping that in view, as long as peace is not restored in Ladakh, we will not participate in any talks,” LAB Chairman Thupstan Chhewang said. He further appealed to authorities: “We will urge the Home Ministry, UT administration, and the administration to take steps to address the atmosphere of fear, grief and anger that is there.”

The standoff comes in the aftermath of widespread violence on September 24, when a shutdown called by the LAB to press for statehood and Sixth Schedule protections spiraled into clashes. Four people lost their lives, dozens sustained injuries, and more than 50 protesters were taken into custody for rioting.

Among those detained was climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has long been the face of the agitation. He was booked under the stringent National Security Act (NSA) and moved to Jodhpur prison. His arrest drew strong responses across political and social quarters.

The government in its statement highlighted that the process of recruitment for 1800 posts in government has already commenced in UT of Ladakh. "We are confident that continuous dialogue would yield the desired results in the near future," it said.

Meanwhile, Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali Angmo, dismissed all allegations linking him to violence or foreign agencies. “They promised to send it on Friday. We will take legal recourse,” she said, noting that the family has yet to receive a copy of the detention order.

Calling accusations of “Pakistan links” and financial irregularities against him baseless, Angmo maintained: “He has been protesting in the most Gandhian way possible and the situation escalated on September 24 due to the actions of the CRPF.”

The police, however, have pointed to “suspicious” trips abroad and cited the recent arrest of a Pakistani Intelligence Operative who allegedly circulated Wangchuk’s protest videos across the border. Ladakh DGP S D Singh Jamwal mentioned his participation in an event hosted by Pakistani daily The Dawn as a cause for concern.

Angmo pushed back, clarifying the nature of those visits. “There are organisations like the ICIMOD, which bring together all the eight Hindu Kush countries and work on different issues. We are part of the ICIMOD’s Himalayan University Consortium,” she explained, adding that their presence at such forums was strictly professional.

Speaking about a February event titled ‘Breathe Pakistan’, Angmo said it was held under the banner of the United Nations Pakistan and Dawn Media, with multinational participation. “I was also there to present a paper on women's role in climate change... In fact, he (Wangchuk) praised Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi on stage at the event,” she emphasized.

She argued that Wangchuk’s activism had always focused on climate, education, and the environment. “The glacier on the top of the Himalayas is not going to see whether I'm flowing into Pakistan or India,” she said. “The Nepal and Bangladesh reference being bandied around is actually an example Sonam gave, i.e., ‘when governments are not responsive, it leads to a revolution’. We should avoid the interpretations.”

Meanwhile, the Centre had, on September 20, invited both the LAB and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) for renewed dialogue after nearly four months of silence. Both groups have been spearheading the demand for statehood and the extension of Sixth Schedule protections to the Union Territory.

Angmo said her husband’s detention under the NSA — which allows for incarceration without trial for up to a year — was unjustified. She reminded of his long track record of peaceful campaigns, including his work at the Himalayan Institute of Alternative Learning (HIAL), of which she is co-founder.

With inputs from PTI