4 min readSrinagarUpdated: Mar 16, 2026 07:02 PM IST
Thousands poured onto the streets in Ladakh on Monday as the region’s political leadership called for a total shutdown amid an impasse in dialogue with the Centre.
Ladakh’s two representative bodies, the Apex Body Leh (ABL) and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), which have been in talks with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs as part of a 15-member High Powered Committee (HPC), called for the shutdown in Leh and Kargil.
Markets remained shut in both Leh and Kargil as people carrying banners demanding statehood and safeguards under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution walked through the main markets. The remote parts of Zanskar also joined in the strike called by the KDA and ABL.
This was the first major protest in the region since the sit-in protests in September last year. Four people had died in police firing on September 24, and climate activist Sonam Wangchuk was detained under the National Security Act. On Saturday, Wangchuk was released from Jodhpur jail as the Centre revoked his detention.
Member of the HPC and ABL co-chairman Cherring Dorjay Lakrook told The Indian Express that the protests remained peaceful despite large participation. “Police had put up several barricades in order to stop us, but we urged the people to remain patient, and we did that peacefully.”
The goal, he said, is to assert to New Delhi that “we will not stop demanding what is rightfully ours”.
The demands
Ladakh has been in conversation with the MHA over a four-point agenda. This includes statehood for Ladakh, safeguards under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, reservation in jobs for the youth of Ladakh, and the creation of separate parliamentary constituencies for the two parts of the region.
Of the two Autonomous Hill Councils in the region, the five-year term of the council in Leh concluded on November 1, 2025, and fresh elections to the council have not been announced. Since Ladakh was carved out of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir as a Union Territory without a legislature, there has been some anxiety around the lack of adequate democratic representation for the people, barring one MP from the region. The Hill Council in Kargil is currently in the third year of its term.
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This gap in representation, Lakrook said, has left a void. “People do not know who to turn to,” he said.
KDA member Sajjad Kargili said that if the demands of the people of Ladakh are not met, “We have no option but to continue our agitations.”
Blaming the MHA for stalling dialogue within the HPC, he said that the decision to create a Union Territory “was forced upon us without consultations and therefore the current unrest is a direct result of the Centre’s own policies.”
Ladakh MP Mohammad Hanifa Jan, who has backed these protests, also joined in the rally at Kargil on Monday.
