Ladakh Taxi Mafia attacks cars. Is it worth to visit?

As per a forum discussion on Team-BHP, the Ladakh Taxi Mafia attacked a group of 15 vehicles that was on its way to Pangong Tso (the lake that became famous after 3 Idiots). As per the post from “ashnd” on the forum, he narrates his story of Ladakh. He states his story of the 15 car convoy- of which he was a part of- was stopped by mobs, who attacked all the cars with stones and iron rods. This resulted in injury for some of the occupants.

The post also states that there was a policeman was standing and witnessing the event, however their FIR wasn’t filed. The Ladakh Taxi Union is protesting against “self-drive” cars which is gaining popularity because of upcoming companies like Zoomcar and Myles.

The post reads, “One by one, ALL our private vehicles were stoned and attacked. They paid no regard to occupants of the vehicle and huge stones were hurled at private vehicles. Three in our convoy sustained minor injuries. We were fortunate that no-one was seriously hurt. We had to nearly ram our way through the crowd. Fortunately they parted and we were able to escape. A policeman was standing in front of the crowd and gesturing for us to stop rather than controlling the crowd.”

We visit Ladakh not just for the topography, but also the warm and welcoming nature of the locals. But with the latter going, Ladakh habitants will be loosing out on a major chunk of tourism. This is likely to be a threat to a lot of bikers too and people might just stop visiting Ladakh for this reason. The number of rented self-driven cars coming here will be minimal and just to get a minor percentage on-board, it seems the locals might be losing a major chunk of their business. With the local police not taking any action against the hooligans, it will be encouraging them more and discouraging tourists from visiting.

We stay in a free country and Ladakh isn’t tension-bound area at the moment, despite being close to the border.

However, one has to register before traveling to other places in the valley at the Leh office. This is ideally to keep a toll on the number of people visiting different areas in the mountain region. Just that it becomes a hassle for tourists.

With even Maggi gone for the time being, we don’t know what will be the substitute for travelers to eat.

Someone has to start somewhere, so we have decided to push this initiative and get our rights, as we stay in the “World’s Largest Democracy”. No so-called “Taxi-Union” has any rights to stop anyone. It doesn’t matter if 5 or 1000 self-drive cars come. They can come up with better business ideas. They are killing tourism in Ladakh for their ego and someone has to take an action. We all must take the first step.