Home Ministry calls high-level meet with Ladakh leaders

The Union Home Ministry has called a meeting of the High-Powered Committee (HPC) with Ladakh leaders later this month, according to an official communication. This will be the first high-level meeting after last year’s violence in Leh, in which four people were killed and around 90 injured.

The HPC, chaired by Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai, was constituted three years ago to hold talks with Ladakh-based groups led by the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA). The last meeting of the committee was held in May, while another was scheduled for October last year.

However, ahead of the proposed October meeting, clashes broke out in Leh in September during protests demanding statehood and Sixth Schedule status for Ladakh. Following the violence, the Centre ordered a judicial inquiry in October.

In the same month, subcommittee-level talks were held between representatives of the Home Ministry and Ladakh leaders. Subsequently, the leaders submitted a draft proposal outlining their key demands, including statehood and Sixth Schedule status for the Union Territory.

According to a communication sent by the Union Home Ministry to Ladakh’s Chief Secretary on Thursday, “the next meeting of the High-Powered Committee (HPC) will be convened in the latter part of January 2026.”

“It is requested to consult the members of the HPC for their convenient set of dates and inform this Ministry,” the communication said.

Leh Apex Body co-chairman Cherring Dorjay Lakruk told The Tribune that Ladakh leaders would raise the same issues during the HPC meeting. “We have already submitted a detailed proposal regarding our demands,” he said.

Lakruk added that before the HPC meeting, leaders of the LAB and the KDA would hold internal consultations.

Meanwhile, Ladakh BJP leader and former chairman of the Leh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), Tashi Gyalson, who recently met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and urged him to convene the next round of talks with Ladakh-based groups to address the region’s long-pending issues, said on Thursday that a convenient date for the meeting would be finalised after consultations with HPC members.