Sonam Wangchuk on NSA detention: Time for reflection, ready for dialogue

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Ladakh activist Sonam Wangchuk, released after 6 months under NSA, calls his detention a time for personal reflection. While noting ‘wrongs were done’, he expresses readiness for dialogue and moving forward without bitterness to help the country.

Ladakh-based climate activist Sonam Wangchuk on Tuesday reflected on his nearly six-month detention under the National Security Act in Jodhpur Central Jail, describing it as an experience that allowed him time for personal reflection. Wangchuk was released from Jodhpur Central Jail after nearly six months in detention, following the government’s revocation of his detention under the NSA on Saturday. He expressed his readiness to engage in dialogue to move forward constructively.

A Time for Reflection, Readiness for Dialogue

Speaking to ANI, Wangchuk said, “In my personal life, I would say it (6 months in jail) was positive. It was an experience that gave me time to reflect on myself. From a justice perspective, many mistakes were made, many wrongs were done, and these mistakes should never happen to anyone.”

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“But the way they were withdrawn, I understand that there is an awareness of those mistakes, and where there is awareness, I won’t revisit the issue. There should be no bitterness. We will come back to the table and move forward to move this country forward,” he said.

Recounting a ‘Horror Story’

Earlier, while addressing a press conference, Wangchuk recounted his nearly six-month ordeal in Jodhpur Central Jail as a “huge horror story,” highlighting the challenges his wife, Gitanjali J Angmo, faced in seeking legal recourse. “I was waiting to come out (of the jail) either as we win in the court or after 12 months. I was very well prepared to spend 12 months and come out and share the horror stories of all the wrongs that happened to me and to her (Sonam Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali J Angmo). Right from how abruptly from my home I was, you know, bundled up and thrown into this jail, without any opportunity even to call my family or my lawyers for days, more than a week. Or of her, who could not even meet journalists to voice her anguish with heavy security positioning around the campus and how she slipped out into Delhi to knock on the doors of the court and how for two or three weeks there was a kind of cat and mouse chase on the streets of Delhi with her cars followed by people in cars and motorcycles. It was all a filmy scene,” he said.

Wangchuk was taken into custody on September 26, 2025, two days after protests in Leh demanding statehood for Ladakh and its inclusion under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. (ANI)

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianet Newsable English staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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