Case 77 · Rights and dissent

Ladakh. A Sixth Schedule promise, then four dead

Promised 2019. Four dead Sept 2025.

NSA for the man who asked

325 days since Nobody has been held to account.

Human cost Est

Four killed in police firing in Leh on 24 September 2025, one a Kargil war veteran; injured reported between 50 and 160+. 170 days of preventive detention for Sonam Wangchuk

Financial cost

Not a money case. The price is counted in a 35-day hunger strike, a 1,000 km march stopped at the Delhi border, and 97%+ of a Scheduled Tribe population still without the safeguards promised

What happened

Ladakh became a Union Territory without a legislature in August 2019. The ruling party's 2019 manifesto had listed Sixth Schedule status for Ladakh among its regional priorities, and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes recommended it the same year. The Leh Apex Body and Kargil Democratic Alliance have since asked for four things: Sixth Schedule safeguards, statehood, a Ladakh Public Service Commission, and separate Lok Sabha seats for Leh and Kargil.

Claim against record

What the government said

The Home Ministry says it has kept a genuine dialogue running through a High-Powered Committee, and has offered Article 371 safeguards, strengthened hill councils and five new districts in place of the Sixth Schedule. On the September 2025 violence it holds that speeches by protest leaders incited the mob, and that repeated shutdowns damaged students, job aspirants, business and tourism in a strategically sensitive border region.

What the record shows

NSA for the man who asked

After at least ten rounds of talks between 2020 and March 2024, the Home Minister told the delegation that neither the Sixth Schedule nor statehood would be granted. Wangchuk and 130 others were detained at the Singhu border on 30 September 2024 while marching to Rajghat. When protests turned violent on 24 September 2025, four people were shot dead by police; two days later Wangchuk was detained under the National Security Act and held in Jodhpur Central Jail. The Home Ministry revoked the order after 170 days, two days before the Supreme Court was to hear his wife's habeas corpus petition. No officer has been publicly held responsible for the firing.

Contested / alleged

The injury count from 24 September 2025 is contested, reported variously as 50, 80 and over 160.

What accountability should have looked like

A published magisterial inquiry into the firing with named responsibility, a dated answer on the Sixth Schedule, and preventive detention reserved for threats to national security rather than for hunger strikers.

Ministers and office-holders responsible

Ran the talks; revoked the NSA order two days before a Supreme Court hearingMinistry of Home Affairs
Union Home Minister; conveyed the refusal of Sixth Schedule status and statehoodAmit Shah
Police firing that killed four; no accountability announcedLadakh UT administration

Naming who held the portfolio is a matter of public record. It is not by itself a finding of personal responsibility for any death or any rupee.

Sources

T1 primary record · T2 reporting · T3 partisan

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Cite or export this case

Citizens' Accountability Ledger, "Ladakh. A Sixth Schedule promise, then four dead" (Promised 2019. Four dead Sept 2025.), case-52. https://whoisresponsible.xyz/case/case-52/

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