Rajesh Kumar Named Arunachal Police Chief Amid Dam Protests

Itanagar: The Union Home Ministry picked Rajesh Kumar to lead Arunachal Pradesh police. He is a 1995-batch IPS officer. The move follows his sudden exit from the Central Reserve Police Force where he served as Special Director General. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet greenlit his return to the AGMUT cadre immediately.

Kumar replaces Shiv Darshan Singh Jamwal. Jamwal is heading to Delhi. This change in command hits the state as tension boils over the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project. The massive 11,200-megawatt hydropower plan faces stiff pushback. Members of the indigenous Adi community fear the project will wreck their lives. Locals worry about the submergence of ancestral villages, displacement, and the loss of farm land and forests. They say it threatens their traditional way of life.

The central government sees the dam as a defensive wall. It holds strategic weight because of China. Beijing plans a massive dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet. That water flows into India as the Siang. State authorities face a tough road ahead. The official order stated that Kumar will "succeed Shiv Darshan Singh Jamwal" as the new police chief.