Sonam Wangchuk's Wife Gitanjali Angmo Moves Supreme Court Against His Detention

Gitanjali Angmo, wife of Ladakh-based activist Sonam Wangchuk, has moved the Supreme Court seeking his release from a jail in Rajasthan's Jodhpur. Wangchuk was arrested last week under the stringent National Security Act (NSA).

Angmo filed a habeas corpus petition — a legal recourse used to challenge unlawful detention — in the apex court on Oct. 2.

"I have sought relief from the SUPREME COURT OF INDIA through a HABEAS CORPUS petition against @Wangchuk66’s detention," she said in a post on social media platform X.

"It is one week today. Still I have no information about Sonam Wangchuk’s health, the condition he is in nor the grounds of detention," she said.

Angmo, co-founder of the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives Ladakh (HIAL), has refuted the allegation that Wangchuk was in touch with a Pakistani intelligence operative, and accused the Ladakh police of working with an agenda, as per an NDTV report.

She alleged that "baseless narratives" were being spread against him and his institutes to project him as an "anti-national" as part of a "witch-hunt".

On Wednesday, Angmo wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Droupadi Murmu, Home Minister Amit Shah, Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh Kavinder Gupta, Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, and also the Leh District Collector, a copy of which she posted on X.

Sonam Wangchuk, who has been at the forefront of the movement seeking statehood and extension of the Sixth Schedule to Ladakh, was detained under the NSA in Leh on Friday for allegedly instigating the violent protests on Sept. 24 that left four people dead and scores of others, including security personnel, injured.

"A witch-hunt has been going on against us. We have given all documents clarifying the charges to officials from CBI, to the Income Tax Department, yet a smokescreen is being created to defame Sonam, so that the movement for the Sixth Schedule can be weakened," Angmo alleged.