Scaling down AFSPA
TWO days after Assam and Meghalaya signed an agreement to partially resolve their boundary dispute, the Centre has announced a reduction in the number of ‘disturbed areas’ under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Assam, Nagaland and Manipur. These are good tidings for the Northeast, raising hopes of long-term peace and stability in the region troubled by insurgency for decades. The 1958 Act, which empowers security forces to conduct operations and make arrests without a warrant, besides giving them immunity from arrest and prosecution if they gun someone down, has been under fire from the local population and human rights groups over allegations of its indiscriminate use by the troops. The clamour for its revocation reached a crescendo after 14 civilians were killed by the Army in Nagaland’s Mon district in December last year. Some of them were shot dead in a case of ‘mistaken identity’, which triggered violent protests that claimed the lives of the others.
The decision to reduce the number of ‘disturbed areas’ has been taken on the recommendation of a high-level committee, which was set up in the wake of the Mon killings to examine the possibility of withdrawing the Act from Nagaland. AFSPA is now applicable fully in 31 districts and partially in 12 districts of Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. The Act was withdrawn from Meghalaya in 2018 and Tripura in 2015, and both states have remained by and large peaceful since then.
According to the Home Ministry, militancy-related incidents have dropped by 74 per cent in the Northeast over a seven-year period (2014-21). Correspondingly, the deaths of security personnel and civilians have come down by 60 per cent and 84 per cent, respectively. These encouraging figures should spur the Union Government to consider making the entire region AFSPA-free. A decade and a half ago, the Justice BP Jeevan Reddy Committee and the Administrative Reforms Commission had recommended repeal of the contentious Act. A review of the situation over the next few months should suffice for the Centre to do the needful in consultation with the state governments.
