‘State treating us like criminals’: Sonam Wangchuk’s wife appeals to President for his release

Five days after climate activist Sonam Wangchuk was detained under the National Security Act (NSA), his wife and fellow activist Gitanjali Angmo has written to President Droupadi Murmu, seeking his “unconditional release” and alleging that the state and its agencies are subjecting their family to surveillance and harassment.

Wangchuk, founder of the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh (HIAL), was taken into custody in Leh on September 26 following violent protests in which four people were killed in police firing. In her representation, Angmo — who serves as CEO of HIAL — described his detention as “without cause” and questioned why she has been barred from speaking to her husband in person or over the phone.

“Apart from the illegal detention of my husband, the manner in which the State and its agencies are hounding us and have kept us under surveillance is deplorable,” she wrote, adding that such treatment violates fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution.

Angmo said that on September 30, the institute’s security guard received a communication demanding details of fellowship students, residential staff, and teacher trainees — including personal information, photographs, and contact numbers — raising fears of a “full-scale witch-hunt.”

She stressed that citizens across the country were “shocked” by the government’s action against what she called a “peaceful Gandhian protestor with an impeccable track record of service to the nation.”

Highlighting Wangchuk’s role in developing innovative shelters for the Indian Army and his lifelong advocacy for Ladakh, she warned that treating “a son of the soil so shabbily is not just a sin but a strategic error” for India’s border stability.

“Wangchuk has always stood for the solidarity of India, the strengthening of borders, and integration of peripheral regions through democratic means — statehood, legislative powers and inclusion under the Sixth Schedule,” Angmo wrote.

Copies of the representation have also been sent to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Law Ministry, and the office of the Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh.