"Sonam (Wangchuk) gets only two hours to meet me, and two hours to meet his lawyer. I do not miss the meetings. We ask how each one is doing, and I think both of us portray a very strong front," said Gitanjali J Angmo, educator and wife of climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has now spent 60 days in prison.
One of Ladakh’s most globally recognised voices has remained behind bars under the Public Safety Act (PSA). As legal challenges unfold and political tensions in Ladakh intensify, the silence around Wangchuk’s case has only deepened.
This is not the first time Angmo has spoken publicly since his detention, but while speaking to The Quint, it is the first time she has detailed what she has personally endured.
During one visit, she says she joked that he might walk out “enlightened like Aurobindo”.
Angmo describes how, since Wangchuk's arrest on 26 September, the government and the administration have repeatedly stonewalled her attempts to access information regarding his detention.
"Initially, it was a very scary period. The first time I met him was on 7 October. Twelve days of no information about somebody is quite scary," she said.
Parallel to this, there is the legal battle. Angmo says the detention order cites several videos that are “misleading”, were circulated by trolls to create a narrative for nearly a year before the arrest, and have already been fact-checked.
“The witch-hunting process started almost a year ago. The character assassination of Sonam began then — anti-national, Pakistani agent, ISI agent, etc," she said.
"If you look at the detention order, the words and terms used are straight from the trolls’ mouth. A year ago, whatever the trolls were spreading — despite it having been fact-checked and denied — still appears in the detention order,” she said, as she went on to outline several of the videos cited to justify Wangchuk's arrest under the National Security Act (NSA).
Media trials, online harassment, and sustained trolling campaigns — Angmo addresses each to explain what she describes as a systematic narrative built against Wangchuk and their institutes.
In this episode of 'Badi Badi Baatein' withAngmo talks to Associate Editor Eshwar to detail the disputes with the government over alleged detention irregularities, confronting media trials, social media trolling, and the inclusion of YouTube troll videos in the detention order.