AFSPA may go totally from NE: PM Modi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 28

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said efforts were on to remove Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) completely from the northeastern region.

80% reduction in insurgency in 8 yrs

• Incidents of insurgency in the northeastern states reduced by 80 per cent in the last eight years while casualties of security forces went down by 75 per cent and civilian deaths by 99 per cent, an official report said.
• According to the annual report of the MHA, the situation in the North-East has improved substantially since 2014 and the year 2020 recorded the lowest insurgency incidents.

Addressing the “peace, unity and development rally” at Diphu in Karbi Anglong district of Assam, the Prime Minister said AFSPA had been withdrawn from several parts of the region as the law and order situation had improved in the last eight years. Karbi Anglong is among the nine districts of Assam where AFSPA continues to be in force. This is the Prime Minister’s first visit to Assam after AFSPA was partially lifted from the state earlier this month. “As the (law and order) situation has improved with 75 per cent decrease in violence in the region, there have been changes in the imposition of laws. AFSPA was first revoked in Tripura and then in Meghalaya,” he said. The previous governments in Assam in the last three decades extended AFSPA again and again as there was no improvement in the law and order situation, the PM said. “We are trying to withdraw it from the remaining parts of Assam,” Modi said. “The Act is still applicable in some areas of Nagaland and Manipur, we are working speedily to revoke it completely there too,” he added.

Modi said the effect of the BJP’s “double engine” government was evident in the return of peace and development in Assam.

The PM laid the foundation stones of veterinary science and agriculture colleges in Karbi Anglong. Later, he flew to Dibrugarh and inaugurated seven cancer hospitals in in the state.

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