A Year After Leh Firing, Wangchuk Flags Delay in Judicial Report, Threatens People's Panel

A year after the police action in Leh that left four people dead, climate activist and educator Sonam Wangchuk has criticised the continued delay in making public the findings of the judicial panel set up to examine the September 2025 violence, and warned that a civil society-led "people's panel" will be constituted to probe the "police excess and firing" if the government-appointed commission does not table its report.

To mark the anniversary, Mr. Wangchuk led a one-day, 20-km symbolic padayatra on September 23, 2026, honouring those killed and pressing for justice.

What happened in Leh

Tensions in Leh boiled over on September 24, 2025, when a youth-led protest demanding constitutional protections escalated into a clash with security forces. Four people died and dozens were injured, prompting curfew across Leh and parts of Kargil. Two days later, on September 26, Mr. Wangchuk was detained under the National Security Act; he was released after 170 days in custody.

The protest grew out of a hunger strike Mr. Wangchuk began on September 10, 2025, pressing for Statehood and for Ladakh's inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, which would grant tribal status. The Union Home Ministry said the Centre had been engaging with the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), and that despite a planned meeting with their leaders on September 26, "a mob guided by Sonam Wangchuk's provocative statements" caused the violence. A BJP office was torched and the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) premises were vandalised.

After the violence, Mr. Wangchuk called off the hunger strike. At a virtual press conference, he said no one had anticipated such an escalation. He noted that leaders had told him peaceful protests were not enough, and described the events as a "Gen Z frenzy" in which young protesters would not listen to anyone and were unafraid of bullets. He said it was the fifth hunger strike they had undertaken, and that the youth had been telling them for days that peaceful protests were not working. Accusing the government of defeating the peaceful movement by pushing the youth towards violence, he said the participation of young people that day was beyond their imagination, as only 25-30 had taken part until then.

The demands

The protesters' core demands have centred on four items: full Statehood for Ladakh; inclusion of the Union Territory in the Sixth Schedule; separate parliamentary representation for Leh and Kargil; and job and land safeguards for residents. These issues date back to 2019, when Ladakh was separated from Jammu & Kashmir and placed under direct central administration — a change many residents say left key questions over governance and local rights unresolved.

Waiting for the report

In an interview on September 22, 2026, Mr. Wangchuk — now part of a high-powered committee holding talks with the Ministry of Home Affairs on constitutional safeguards for Ladakh — said all affidavits and submissions before the judicial inquiry had been completed long ago, but there was no indication of when its findings would be made public. "One year after the incident, we don't even have justice for these martyrs. Who is right and who is wrong has to be cleared," he said.

He added that he had not personally deposed before the inquiry because he was in jail while the proceedings were underway. People in the region, he said, were suggesting that an alternative judicial inquiry be constituted through respected retired judges — a people's tribunal of sorts — because the government-instituted commission was simply not coming out with its report.