New Delhi, Sep 2 : Union home minister P Chidambaram on Thursday said a fresh attempt was being made to build a consensus within the government to amend the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), a law which gives security forces powers of search, seizure and detain without warrant in their fight against insurgents\militants in 'disturbed areas'.
"I am trying to revisit AFSPA but as you know one needs to build a consensus within the government before amendments can be brought before Parliament," Chidambaram said.
"We are trying. You know we have tried in the past," he said in response to a question whether AFSPA could be repealed in Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir. The Act is in force in some areas in Kashmir and insurgency-affected states in the north-east.
The home ministry had in the past moved the proposal of withdrawing the Act from certain areas, but it was resisted by the defence ministry, which argued that the withdrawal will affect counter-militancy operation. The Army has conveyed its apprehensions that replacement of AFSPA or any dilution could hamper its operational capabilities to effectively deal with militancy and insurgency.
Chidambaram said in J&K there was a consensus within the Central government that if the state withdraws the Disturbed Areas Act (DAA), AFSPA will automatically go.
"You know that in Kashmir, we have asked the state government to review the application of Disturbed Areas Act. Then, automatically if DAA does not apply to areas in Kashmir, AFSPA is not applied to that area in Kashmir. So we took that route in Kashmir. In Manipur, the demand is that AFSPA should be repealed. There is a Jeevan Reddy committee report. We have discussed this a couple of times," he said.
"As I said, there is no consensus yet and I am trying to build a consensus. I have not succeeded so far. There is a statement of the Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) that we will replace AFSPA with a more humane Act. So we are trying," he said.
"On the first route (in J&K) there is a consensus at the Centre. Now at the operational level, the J&K government would have to, in the Unified Command, agree to review the application of Disturbed Areas Act," he said.
"If they are able to lift DAA from, say five places, then AFSPA would not apply to those five places. So that is something which they have to do and I am in touch with the chief minister (Omar Abdullah)," Chidambaram said, adding Omar has to "weigh the pros and cons and then decide when to do it, where to do it."
The National Conference-led government in J&K has already constituted a panel earlier this year to review DAA.
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