Home Ministry to hold meeting with Ladakh groups on Wednesday

A meeting of the High-Powered Committee (HPC) between the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and leaders from Ladakh will be held on Wednesday in New Delhi.

Members of the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), who will participate in the meeting, have already arrived in the national capital. The meeting marks the first high-level engagement between the two sides since last year’s violence in Leh, in which four people were killed and around 90 injured during protests.

According to Ladakh leaders, the discussions will focus on their core demands, including statehood for Ladakh and inclusion of the Union Territory under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. These demands have already been formally submitted to the Union Home Ministry.

The Ladakh representatives are also expected to raise the issue of the release of climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, who is currently lodged in a Rajasthan jail after being booked under the National Security Act.

The High-Powered Committee, 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 LAB and the KDA. The committee last met in May last year.