On 12 July 2026, Indigenous leader and human rights defender Pranab Doley was arbitrarily arrested along with four other Indigenous community leaders – Amit Nag, Brijit Kutum, Rajib Pegu and Bhaskar Saikia. These arrests are part of the continued targeting of Adivasi resisting the dispossession of Indigenous lands in the Kaziranga region (Assam, India) for destructive greenwashing projects like tiger conservation, tourism and luxury resorts. The Community Network Against Protected Areas (CNAPA) has released this statement of condemnation.
Undisciplined Environments stands in solidarity and comradeship with the CNAPA and Indigenous resistances against green colonialism.
To sign the statement, email the CNAPA at: [email protected]
Statement Condemning the Arrest of Human Rights Defender Pranab Doley and the Criminalisation of Indigenous Resistance in Kaziranga
by the Community Network Against Protected Areas (CNAPA)
18 July 2026
The Community Network Against Protected Areas (CNAPA) strongly condemns the arbitrary arrest of Indigenous leader and human rights defender Pranab Doley, Convenor of the Greater Kaziranga Land and Human Rights Protection Committee (GKLHRPC) and founding member, CNAPA, along with four other Indigenous community leaders – Amit Nag, Brijit Kutum, Rajib Pegu and Bhaskar Saikia of GKLHRPC and calls out the continued targeting of Adivasi Indigenous community leaders and political activists resisting the dispossession of Indigenous lands in the Kaziranga region for destructive greenwashing projects like tiger conservation, tourism and luxury resorts, etc.
Pranab Doley was detained arbitrarily by Assam Police on 12 July 2026 in Guwahati without being furnished an arrest memo at the time of his detention. Pranab’s grounds of arrest were communicated at 3 am in the morning of 13th July 2026, many hours after he had been taken into custody. His residence was reportedly searched without a warrant, and electronic devices and several other items were seized several times. Pranab, Amit and Brijit continue to be in police custody till Monday (20th July 2026), while Rajib and Bhaskar are in judicial custody after their surrender before the Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate Bokakhat on 14th July 2026. Besides this, several activists associated with the movement against the land acquisition for luxury resort – including Geeta Gowala, Mrinali Gowala, Srimoti Kishan etc – face criminal prosecution under serious offences and have been subjected to police atrocities. These illegal detentions, arrests and intimidations raise grave concerns regarding how Indigenous people are being criminalised for raising their voice against land grab as well as the violation of due process of law and the fundamental constitutional rights of citizens as guaranteed in law.
While being arbitrarily arrested, Indigenous leader Pranab Doley said: “If I can’t voice out my opinion for other people, what kind of democracy is this?” Illustration by: Monika from @defiance_in_art
These arrests cannot be viewed in isolation. They are part of a larger pattern of criminalising democratic dissent by communities opposing the acquisition of Adivasi Indigenous agricultural and grazing lands at Inlay Pathar and Hatikhuli, adjoining Kaziranga National Park, for a proposed luxury tourism project by Hyatt International and its Indian partner Juniper Hotels. The affected families have consistently stated that they have cultivated these lands for generations, possess long-standing revenue records, and were neither meaningfully consulted nor provided Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) before their lands were fenced off and construction activities commenced. The people of Inlay Pathar and Hatikuli, along with leaders like Pranab Doley, have repeatedly engaged in dialogue with Kaziranga officials and the Golaghat District Administration for over four years, but instead of recognising their rights and addressing the issue, they were chased, beaten and abused on every occasion and were called illegal encroachers.
The communities whose agricultural and homestead lands are being stolen for the construction of the Hyatt Luxury resort belong to the Tea Tribe and Adivasi communities whose ancestors were brought to Assam under colonial systems of indentured labour. Despite generations of labour that contributed significantly to Assam’s economy and landscape, Tea Tribes and Adivasi communities continue to experience historical marginalisation and insecure land tenure. The current struggle is therefore not merely about land, but a larger resistance for dignity, livelihood, identity, the constitutional promise of equality and justice and the historical injustice meted out against these communities.
The protests that emerged in June 2026 were fundamentally about defending these rights. The Assam government’s response to the people’s peaceful mobilisation against the resort was the slapping of arbitrary criminal charges with a clear intention to harass leaders as well as stifle people’s voices. The arbitrary allegations include trespassing, carrying of weapons, outraging modesty of women police personnel among several others, which has created a chilling effect on democratic protests. This further sends a disturbing message that the police enjoy unquestioning impunity and that communities asserting their constitutional rights shall be treated as nothing but criminals.
Arbitrary arrests and violent repression of Indigenous leaders expose the broader link between the fortress model of conservation and extractive development that CNAPA has been consistently questioning.
Across India, many protected areas continue to be governed through a colonial “fortress-conservation” approach that views local and Adivasi Indigenous communities as obstacles to conservation rather than custodians of forests and biodiverse habitats. The Kaziranga region has, for decades, witnessed intensive militarised conservation, including arbitrary shoot-at-sight orders. Such an approach has repeatedly generated allegations of excessive use of force, arbitrary detention, fake encounters, intimidation, restrictions on traditional access to land and forests, leading to shrinking democratic space for communities living in and around so-called protected areas. Conservation cannot become a justification for land grab, criminalising Indigenous leaders, weakening constitutional protections or diminishing people’s civil liberties.
Long before the establishment of modern protected area regimes, Indigenous and forest-dependent communities coexisted with the forests, grasslands, wetlands and wildlife of the Brahmaputra region through locally evolved systems of stewardship and coexistence. Replacing these relationships with the exclusionary fortress-conservation model, while simultaneously permitting large-scale commercial tourism infrastructure in ecologically sensitive forest lands, reveals a troubling contradiction.
Ecological integrity can only be ensured only if the knowledge and rights of local communities are recognised and respected as people whose lives have historically been intertwined with ecosystems, rather than handing over vast tracts of forest lands for eco-tourism, hotels, mining and other commercial projects. All these are projects wear the mask of conservation but, in reality, are large-scale real estate brokering.
The arbitrary arrests of Pranab Doley, Amit Nag, Brijit Kutum, Rajib Pegu and Bhaskar Saikia are not merely just arrests of individuals, but they represent a broader tactic to silence Indigenous voices who challenge the systemic historical oppression of their communities and defend their ancestral lands, forests and livelihoods.
CNAPA therefore calls upon the Government of Assam to:
- Immediately release Pranab Doley, Amit Nag, Brijit Kutum, Rajib Pegu & Bhaskar Saikia who have been arrested in connection with the protests at Inlay Pathar and
- Withdraw all fabricated criminal charges filed against peaceful protesters and human rights defenders in Kaziranga.
- Ensure an independent and impartial inquiry into the allegations of unlawful detention, procedural violations, and the reported use of excessive force during the protests.
- Suspend all construction and land acquisition activities of the Hyatt Luxury Hotels project at Inlay Pathar and Hatikuli.
- Recognise and respect rights and claims of affected communities through transparent and lawful processes.
- Immediate stop to exclusionary and militarised models of fortress conservation and ensure a democratic, rights-based conservation that recognises Indigenous peoples and local communities as custodians of biodiverse habitats.
CNAPA, a national coalition of Indigenous peoples and forest-dwelling communities, Gram Sabha/Village Council federations, activists, journalists and academics from across India, stands unconditionally with the people of Inlay Pathar and Hatikuli. It condemns Kaziranga’s Forest Department and Bokakhat Police and Assam’s paramilitary troops’ attempts to intimidate, forcefully evict and illegally acquire lands for Hyatt Luxury Hotels in Kaziranga.
JK Thimma, CNAPA leader and member of the Jenu Kuruba indigenous community of Nagarahole, Karnataka, said:
The Assam Government and Kaziranga forest department must stop imposing the Hyatt Luxury Hotels project on Indigenous lands. If criminalisation of Indigenous leaders resisting dispossession from their ancestral lands does not stop, Indigenous communities all across India will unite to challenge the continuing historical injustice meted out against us. CNAPA stands in solidarity with the affected Tea Tribe and Adivasi communities of Kaziranga and reiterates that ecological integrity, Indigenous rights and social justice are inseparable. Conservation cannot be built upon dispossession, fear and the erosion of fundamental rights.
On behalf of CNAPA :
- Nagarahole Adivasi Jammapale Hakku Sthapana Samithi, Nagarahole, Karnataka
- Tamil Nadu Tribal People’s Association, Tamil Nadu
- Kendriya Sangharsh Samiti, Palamu, Jharkhand
- Van Sanrakshan Sangrami Mancha, Chandubi, Assam
- Greater Kaziranga Land and Human Rights Committee, Kaziranga, Assam
- All Assam Forum for Forest Dependent Communities, Morigaon, Assam
- Tharu Adivasi Mahila Mazdoor Kisan Manch, Dudhwa, Uttar Pradesh
- Maa Mati Suraksha Samiti, Similipal, Mayurbhanj, Odisha
- Gram Sabha Federation, Sitanadi, Dhamtari, Chhattisgarh
- Gram Sabha Federation, Udanti, Gariabandh, Chhattisgarh
- PESA & Forest Rights Committee, Padmaram Gram Panchayat, Appapuram, Telangana
- PESA & Forest Rights Committee, Padmaram Gram Panchayat, Pulitheegalabanda, Telangana
- Vivasayigal Thozhilalargal Munnetra Sangam, Tamil Nadu
- Van Gujjar Tribal Yuva Sangathan, Uttarakhand
- Achanakmar Sangharsh Samiti, Mungeli, Chhattisgarh
- Sundarbans Jana Sramajibi Mancha, Sundarbans, West Bengal
- West Bengal Jana Sramajibi Mancha, West Bengal
- Adivasi Sakti Sangathan, Chhattisgarh
- Baiga Sakti Sangathan, Achanakmar, Chhattisgarh
- National Adivasi Alliance
- Search for Action and Knowledge of Tribal Initiative, Telangana
- Centre for Social Knowledge and Action, Gujarat
- Fridays for Future, Karnataka
- All India Union of Forest Working People
- Kaimur Adivasi Dalit Adhikar Manch, Uttar Pradesh
To sign the statement, email the CNAPA at: [email protected]
