Reduction in areas under AFSPA is a result of ‘improved security situation’, Home Minister Amit Shah says.
New Delhi: Several districts
across Nagaland, Assam and Manipur have been removed from the list of
“disturbed areas” that fall under the controversial Armed Forces
(Special Powers) Act, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announced
Thursday.
Reduction
in areas under AFSPA was a result of “improved security situation”,
Home Minister Amit Shah said in a statement on Twitter.
The move came three months after 14
civilians were killed in an Army ambush in Nagaland’s Mon district,
followed by a spate of protests demanding withdrawal of AFSPA from the
state.
In
Nagaland, where AFSPA has been in place since 1995, areas under 15
police stations across seven districts will be removed from the
disturbed areas list and will no longer fall under AFSPA.
In Assam, which has been under AFSPA
since 1990, 24 districts (23 completely, and one partially) have been
removed from that list. In Manipur, which has been under AFSPA (except
Imphal Municipality area) since 2004, areas under 15 police stations
across six districts have been removed.
The demands for the repeal of AFSPA,
an Act that gives sweeping powers to the armed forces to arrest without
warrants and even shoot to kill in certain situations in ‘disturbed
areas’, from Nagaland and other north-eastern states has persisted for
years and only grew louder following the Mon incident.
After
the episode, the Narendra Modi government on 27 December instituted a
high-level committee chaired by a secretary-level officer to examine the
possibility of withdrawing AFSPA from Nagaland.
According to sources in the MHA, the
panel’s recommendations were accepted and it was decided that AFSPA
could be lifted from certain areas in a phased manner.
Speaking about the latest move, Shah
said the “fast tracked development due to the consistent efforts and
several agreements to end insurgency and bring lasting peace in the
North East” played a role in the decision.
AFSPA was completely removed from
Meghalaya in 2018 and Tripura in 2015. At the time, the Act was in force
in three districts of Arunachal Pradesh.
‘Improved security situation, constant engagement’
According to the MHA statement, in
2021 there has been a 74 per cent fall in incidents of militancy in the
Northeast in comparison to 2014. The
ministry also said that deaths of security personnel too have fallen by
60 per cent and deaths of civilians by 84 per cent, showing “improved
security situation” in the states.
“The consistent efforts of the
Government and improvement in the security situation in the Northeast
led to reduction of the disturbed areas under AFSPA in Nagaland, Assam
and Manipur after decades,” the statement said.
Shah has constantly engaged with the
states in the Northeast, holding dialogues on a regular basis resulting
in most of the extremist groups laying down their arms, it added.
“Today all these persons have become a
part of the democratic process and are participating in the
development of the North East. About 7,000 militants have surrendered in
the last few years,” the ministry said.
The statement noted that the
Government of India has also signed several agreements to end
insurgencies and bring peace to the Northeast in the last three years.
These include the Bodo Accord signed
in January 2020, which resolved the five decades long Bodo problem of
Assam; the Karbi-Anglong Agreement of 4 September 2021, which resolved
the long standing dispute over the Karbi region of Assam; the NLFT (SD)
agreement signed in August 2019 to bring militants into the mainstream
of society in Tripura; and an agreement signed on 16 January 2020 to
resolve the 23-year-old Bru-Reang refugee crisis, under which 37,000
internally displaced persons are being resettled in Tripura.
On 29 March, an agreement resolving disputes along boundaries of Assam and Meghalaya was also signed.
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