India sends extra forces to Arunachal valley after violent anti-dam protests
Police in Arunachal Pradesh have made at least 21 arrests after clashes over a planned mega-dam near the border with Tibet.
India has sent extra security forces to the Siang Valley in Arunachal Pradesh after protests by young people against a planned mega-dam turned violent last week, The Straits Times and NDTV reported on Tuesday.
The two outlets described the deployment differently. The Straits Times, carrying a Reuters report, said authorities had deployed hundreds of additional security personnel. NDTV reported that 30 paramilitary companies had been sent to the Upper Siang, Siang and East Siang districts.
Authorities cited by The Straits Times said police fired tear gas shells during the clashes. Protesters threw stones and set fire to a police station and an office of the state-owned National Hydroelectric Power Corporation, according to the same authorities. Police made at least 21 arrests.
"Forces are being increased in the places where it is required. We do not want any law and order problem," Arunachal Pradesh police chief SD Singh Jamwal told Reuters.
The valley borders Tibet and is the proposed site of the 11,200-megawatt Siang Upper Multipurpose Project, which the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation will develop. The Straits Times reported sporadic protests there over the past two years. Villagers who oppose the project fear it would submerge ancestral villages of the Adi tribe.
Gegong Jijong of the Siang Indigenous Farmers' Forum told Reuters the group would keep opposing the dam until it was cancelled. "If it is constructed, 27 of our ancestral villages will be completely submerged. At least 40 or 50 more will be affected," Jijong said.
India's dam is planned as a counter to a Chinese hydropower project upstream. The Siang flows into Arunachal Pradesh from Tibet, where it is known as the Yarlung Zangbo. China announced plans in December 2024 to build the world's largest hydropower dam upstream, and The Straits Times reported this raised fears in New Delhi that China could weaponise its control of the river.
China claims Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls Zangnan, as part of southern Tibet. India says the state is an integral and inalienable part of its territory.
The state's chief minister, a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, has called the Chinese project an existential threat. He has said the government would protect national interests while respecting the rights and aspirations of the people of the Siang Valley.
Sources: The Straits Times, India deploys extra forces after protests over dam on Chinese border escalate; NDTV, 30 Paramilitary Companies Deployed In Arunachal's Siang Valley After Anti-Dam Protests.
