The alleged inclusion of members of the Chakma and Hajong communities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls sparked violence in the Bordumsa region of Arunachal Pradesh’s Changlang district on Friday (September 4, 2026). The predominantly Buddhist Chakmas and the Hindu Hajongs, displaced from the Chittagong Hill Tracts of erstwhile East Pakistan, were settled by the Centre in Arunachal Pradesh in the 1960s.

According to ground reports, at least one person was injured in the violence, which involved firing and stone-pelting. The injured person was reportedly a member of the All Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union (AAPSU), which has been opposing the inclusion of non-indigenous communities in the State’s electoral rolls.

Officials said the situation remained tense throughout the day, prompting the authorities to heighten security to maintain law and order.

Along with local organisations, the AAPSU protested the plausible inclusion of the Chakmas, particularly those who allegedly settled in Arunachal Pradesh after 2006, in the SIR process. “We want the State government to immediately suspend the SIR process in areas with Chakma and Hajong populations. We also demand the arrest of people who targeted our leaders during the protest,” AAPSU president Meje Taku told journalists. The organisation asked the State’s Home Department not to register a First Information Report (FIR) against any of its members.

Asserting rights

The trouble in parts of the Changlang district started brewing after the Chakma Development Foundation of India (CDFI) approached the National Human Rights Commission, seeking its intervention to enforce a 1996 Supreme Court judgment, as members of the community were allegedly prevented from appearing at the SIR hearing at Bordumsa.

The organisation cited the top court’s direction, which read that, “The State of Arunachal Pradesh shall ensure that the life and personal liberty of each and every Chakma residing within the State shall be protected and any attempt to forcibly evict or drive them out of the State by organised groups, such as the AAPSU, shall be repelled, if necessary, by requisitioning the service of paramilitary or police force…”

The CDFI said the SIR hearing at Bordumsa had to be postponed after protests by the AAPSU. “The hearing at Bordumsa could not be completed yesterday (Thursday) either. The ERO [Electoral Registration Officer] was able to hear only 222 of the 252 Form-6 applications, and only 150 of the 303 Form-7 applications,” it added.