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3h ago

Arunachal Frees Four Detainees and Seeks Talks Over Contested Siang Dam

The government says the move is meant to defuse protests and restart negotiations, while campaigners insist talks cannot begin until FIRs are withdrawn and troops leave the valley.

The Adi community protests against the dam, in Yingkom village in Upper Siang district. They say it will affect at least 40 villages, including submerging 27 of them, and destroy their land and livelihoods.
Arunachal Releases Four Siang Dam Protesters as 'Goodwill Gesture'
The Siang project has drawn strong opposition from the Adi community, particularly in the Siang belt, amid fears of displacement, loss of ancestral land and forests, and possible damage to the region’s rich cultural traditions and fragile ecology.
A formal response from SIFF is awaited. (HT Sourced Photo)

Overview

  • The Arunachal Pradesh government released four activists on Saturday as a goodwill gesture and approved reinstating some suspended village heads to encourage the Siang Indigenous Farmers' Forum to return to talks.
  • SIFF and lead activist Katon Moyong have rejected the invitation to negotiate because the forum still demands the withdrawal of FIRs, removal of additional Central Armed Police Forces and Rapid Action Force units, and a halt to pre-feasibility surveys.
  • Officials and NHPC defend the roughly 11,200 MW Siang Upper Multipurpose Project on strategic and river-management grounds tied to China’s upstream plans, but local leaders call that rationale a pretext and refuse consent.
  • Protests have grown into a regional movement with a long march that reached Assam and public pressure over possible impacts, including organisers' estimates that dozens of villages could be submerged and more than 150,000 people displaced.
  • The project remains at the pre-feasibility report stage and the standoff highlights deeper issues of indigenous consent, heavy security deployments, legal cases under the Arunachal Unlawful Activities law, and political demands for transparency on developer payments and a proposed ₹350 crore package.