Chaos in Pasighat: 250 RAF Troops Fly In as Siang Dam Protests Spiral

New Delhi, Oct 25, 2026.

The smoke from Pasighat was still hanging low when the order came down. Two Rapid Action Force companies, 250 personnel strong, were queued up at Navi Mumbai for an emergency airlift to Arunachal Pradesh’s East Siang district on Saturday. The Ministry of Home Affairs pulled the trigger. It was a blunt response to a weekend that started with a bandh and ended with torched police stations, burned government offices, and the homes of local political leaders reduced to scorched timbers.

This isn’t just another protest. It’s the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project, a $2.5 billion dam that the Centre sees as a strategic shield against China’s upstream water control, while the people living on the banks see it as a death sentence for their ancestral land. The tension has been simmering for months. Saturday was the boiling point. An IAF transport aircraft took off from the airfield near Mumbai, carrying the blue-uniformed CRPF anti-riot squad. They are projected to land in Pasighat by Sunday morning. The tension here is palpable. You can feel it in the static on the radios, in the way locals cross the street when they see a uniform, in the silence that replaced the shouting three days ago.

The Math Behind the Madness

The numbers tell a story of fractured politics. The state government has nearly 3 CRPF battalions permanently stationed in the region, a massive footprint for a small state. But those officers are static. They guard posts. They don’t move fast enough to stop a mob from crossing into a police station. That’s why the RAF was brought in. They are mobile. They are specialized. They are here to break the deadlock, not to negotiate it. The local administration is stretched thin. Officials told reporters that the violence on Friday night wasn’t random. It was targeted. The NHPC office, which represents the central government’s vision for the dam, was a primary target. So was the police station, a symbol of state authority that the protesters clearly saw as an adversary rather than a protector.

But the most chilling detail, the one that doesn’t make the easy headlines, is the targeting of private homes. Three political leaders, including the state BJP chief in East Siang, had their houses attacked on Friday night. This changes the nature of the conflict. It’s no longer just people versus project. It’s people versus the political establishment that they feel has been abandoned. When you burn a politician’s home, you’re not just making a statement. You’re escalating the personal risk for anyone who tries to mediate. That makes the job of the incoming RAF units vastly more complex. They aren’t just holding a line. They are standing in the crossfire of a community that feels its grievances have been ignored for too long.

Between Democracy and Disaster

Chief Minister Pema Khandu released a statement that walked a tightrope. He called the violence “regrettable.” He said the right to peaceful protest is “an essential part of democracy.” He asked all sections of society to maintain peace. These are the words of a politician trying to keep his job and his state from tearing itself apart. But the reality on the ground is harder to swallow. The 12-hour bandh in Siang, Upper Siang, and East Siang districts remained largely peaceful on Friday. The violence only started after the bandh ended, continuing till 3:30 am on Saturday. That timing is telling. It suggests that the frustration didn’t dissipate when the official silence ended. It exploded. The locals fear displacement. They fear the ecological destruction of the Siang River, which feeds their agriculture and their culture. They fear becoming refugees in their own homeland. The state government frames the dam as a national security imperative. A strategic safeguard against China. That’s a harder sell than it sounds when you’re standing in a village that will be submerged.

And nobody in the room looked convinced that the security forces’ arrival would solve the underlying issue. You can stockade a town. You can deploy 250 extra anti-riot cops. But you can’t arrest a sentiment. The fear is real. The anger is real. The dam is a 100-year project. The resentment is immediate. The mismatch in timeframes is where the danger lies. History in the northeast has shown that when you meet protest with disproportionate force, the conflict doesn’t end. It goes underground. It waits. It bides its time. The RAF troops will likely bring the streets back to normal by next week. But the question remains: will the dialogue resume? Or has the bridge been burned along with the NHPC office?

What Comes Next

The immediate next step is containment. The RAF units will deploy in Pasighat over the weekend. There will be a heightened security cordon. Checkpoints. Curfews are possible. The state administration is likely to release a list of injured personnel. The central government will issue a statement reiterating its commitment to regional development. The protests are expected to recur. The Siang project, one of the largest in the country, faces a significant political hurdle. The deadline for the dam’s construction phase has already slipped. This incident will only push it back further. The next 48 hours are critical. If the violence subsides, the narrative will shift to “containment.” If it flares up again, the Centre may consider a stronger federal intervention. For now, the 250 men in blue are in the air, flying north over the mountains, hoping to land in a calm they may never find.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many personnel are being deployed to Arunachal Pradesh?

The Centre has dispatched 250 personnel from two Rapid Action Force (RAF) companies of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). They are being airlifted from Navi Mumbai to Pasighat on an IAF transport aircraft.

Why is the Indian government building the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project?

The project is a hydropower dam planned on the Siang River in Arunachal Pradesh. The government cites water security and strategic benefits against upstream development by China as key reasons. Locals oppose it due to fears of displacement, ecological damage, and loss of ancestral land.

Source: Hindustan Times India

This article was compiled by the IndiaBBCNews editorial system from verified international news sources. Facts have been independently reviewed. Original reporting: Hindustan Times India.