Amir Latif Arain
27 October 2026•Update: 27 October 2026
India has deployed hundreds of additional security personnel in its northeastern Arunachal Pradesh state after protests against a proposed mega hydropower project near the Chinese border, local media reported on Tuesday.
Last week, clashes broke out between protesters and police in Siang Valley, which borders Tibet, Telegraph India reported.
India is pushing for a mega-dam project aimed at countering a Chinese hydropower project upstream.
During the protest, police fired tear gas, while protesters pelted stones and set fire to a police station and an office of the state-run National Hydroelectric Power Corporation.
Siang Valley is the location of the proposed 11,200-megawatt Siang Upper Multipurpose Project, which is to be developed by National Hydroelectric Power Corporation.
Protesters, mainly from the Adi tribe, fear that the dam would submerge their ancestral villages.
The Siang River flows into Arunachal Pradesh from Tibet, where it is known as the Yarlung Zangbo.
In December 2024, China announced plans to build the world's largest hydropower dam upstream, which Arunachal Pradesh's state government sees as an "existential threat."
China considers Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls Zangnan, part of southern Tibet, while India says the state is an inalienable part of its territory.