New Delhi:
A 25-year-old woman whose angry confrontation with security personnel during a road closure in Ladakh went viral has apologised to the Indian Army, Jammu and Kashmir Police and Ladakh Police, saying she had spoken in frustration after waiting for several hours without knowing why she was being stopped.
Speaking to NDTV for the first time since the video went viral, the woman said she regretted her remarks and had never intended to insult the armed forces or become popular through the incident.
“I respect the Indian army so much. I could never dream that they would feel bad because of something I said. That day, we were travelling from Ladakh to Delhi. We didn’t know there was going to be a VIP movement. We waited for three to four hours in the morning, and when we asked a soldier how much longer it would be, he said another hour,” the woman told NDTV’s Shiv Aroor.
#NDTVExclusive | “I Apologise To The Indian Army”: Viral ‘Gen Z’ Woman Speaks To NDTV’s @ShivAroor pic.twitter.com/Zwn8KsXw83
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The additional hour passed, she said, but the road remained closed.
According to Ladakh Police, the video dates from around Kargil Vijay Diwas on July 26, when the road was temporarily closed for security reasons. The incident occurred near the Minimarg check post in the Dras area, where travel on the Minimarg-Zoji La-Sonamarg road had been restricted.
The road closure led to a gathering of travellers, with tempers rising as the wait continued. In the video, the woman is seen confronting security personnel and questioning why some people, including a minister, had apparently been allowed to pass while other travellers remained stopped.
“How did the minister leave from here… We are Gen Z. We will not tolerate this nonsense! We will not tolerate this nonsense! You all tell me, will you sit here [in protest] or not? Let’s go! How will they stop us?” she says in the clip.
“It has been five hours… they are not letting us go. Do we pay money to come here to travel, or do we come to tolerate all this? They have locked the gate. They do this to Kashmiris, and now they are doing it to tourists from outside as well! They locked it, didn’t even state their name, and walked away. There is no one sitting here to take any accountability,” she added.
The video shows several tourists cheering her on as she confronts the security personnel.
But speaking with NDTV, the woman said the circumstances surrounding the confrontation were more complicated than the short viral clip suggested. She said that while the group was waiting, they heard that a confrontation had broken out further ahead between members of the public and security personnel.
“After waiting another hour, bringing our total wait time to six hours, we heard shouting from the front. It seemed like a fight had broken out between the army, the local police, and the public. We were far behind but went forward to see. I got caught in the middle of it and said, ‘I am a patient and I’m having a lot of problems. We’ve been stuck for six hours, unable to use the washroom or do anything because of your VIP movement. We are getting very frustrated. We pay taxes, we do everything. So why is this happening to us?'” she told NDTV.
She acknowledged that the words she used in the video were wrong.
“Whatever I said in frustration was not right at all. It was very wrong,” she added.
The woman said the aftermath of the video’s circulation had left her deeply distressed. She said she had not expected the footage to spread across social media or to attract the level of criticism that followed.
“But that thing was shown in such a negative way that I went into depression,” she said. “I am a normal girl. I am a 25-year-old girl. I had no idea that this thing would increase so much. Now, through you, I am again apologising to all the people of the country, to the Indian army, to the J&K police, to the Ladakh police and especially to Omar Abdullah. I am very ashamed that so many people were hurt because of me.”
One of the lines from the video that attracted particular attention was her shouting, “We are Gen Z.” Asked why she had used the phrase, particularly amid public debate around Gen-Z protests in India, she said it had come out spontaneously as she was being provoked by people around her.
“I don’t know where that phrase came from. A lot of people behind me were provoking me, saying things like, ‘This happens to us all the time. You’re a tourist, so this is your first time facing it. We deal with this every day.’ At that moment, I didn’t realize what I was saying would become such a problem. It just came out by mistake. I didn’t mean to make a statement by mentioning Gen Z,” she said.
