His reaction came shortly after the MHA canceled the FCRA licence of his non-profit NGO – Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh.
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Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, the face of Ladakh statehood agitation which turned violent on Wednesday, has alleged that he was being targetted by Government of India in a series of witch hunting.
Reacting to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) crackdown on his non-profit NGO, Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh over alleged FCRA violation, Wangchuk Thuraday said, “In the series of witch hunting, yesterday’s events were the last and all blame was put on Sonam Wangchuk.”
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He further explaines the chronology of the alleged witch hunt against him, stating that a day after Leh protests, “the Home Ministry of India issued a press release naming Sonam Wangchuk in it and blaming him for the violence.”
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“I had received a notice about a CBI inquiry stating that your organisation received foreign funding even when it did not have FCRA. We did not get FCRA because we don’t want funds from abroad,” he told news agency ANI.
When pointed out that his NGO had indeed received foreign funds, Wangchuk explained they were the fees he received in exchange of sharing knowledge.
“United Nations team wanted to take our Passive Solar Heated Building to Afghanistan, and for this, they gave us a fee. We also got fees with tax from Switzerland and Italy organisations for supplying knowledge to them about our artificial glaciers,” Wangchuk stated.
His reaction came shortly after the MHA canceled the FCRA licence of his non-profit NGO – Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh.
In its order, the government cited ‘repeated’ violations of the law governing foreign funding for such non- profit organisations.
It further noted the NGO was served a show-cause notice on August 20, 2025 but the response submitted by the organisation on September 19, 2025 failed to satisfactorily explain the irregularities.
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