In 2023, hundreds of farmers and land rights defenders from the Tiruvannamalai district in Tamil Nadu protested peacefully over a period of 100 days against the government's proposed acquisition of agricultural wetlands for Phase III of the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ltd (SIPCOT) Industrial Park, which will be leased to private industries. Eleven criminal cases were registered against the protesting farmers in three different police stations.

On 4 November 2023, the police forcibly entered the homes of 20 farmer protestors, arrested them, took them to the police station, and they were remanded to judicial custody. Seven of the twenty HRDs were placed under preventive detention and transferred to other prisons in Tamil Nadu. Due to people protesting this action, the order of preventive detention was withdrawn against six HRDs within two days, while one HRD was in preventive detention until 8 January 2024. The HRDs faced charges of unlawful assembly amongst others. Nineteen farmers were released in late November 2023; the remaining HRD spent 68 days in prison before being released on bail.