AFSPA To Be Completely Withdrawn From Assam By October: CM Himanta Biswa Sarma
Assam: Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), 1958, will be withdrawn completely from Assam by October this year, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told party workers during a meeting in Guwahati, a source said.
Considered as a draconian law by many in the Northeast, AFSPA is a Parliamentary act that grants special powers to the Indian armed forces and paramilitary forces, particularly the Indian Army and Assam Rifles, to maintain public order in “disturbed areas”. The act also empowers the security forces to act at will in civilian areas on the basis of mere suspicion.
Assam, which has already withdrawn AFSPA from almost 70 per cent of the state, now aims to withdraw the act from the state entirely. The move comes days after Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi.
Addressing party leaders and workers at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Bhawan in Guwahati, CM Sarma confirmed that AFSPA will be completely withdrawn from the state by October, said a source who was in the meeting.
While Assam was declared a “disturbed area” by a notification in 1990, AFSPA is now in place only in eight districts and one sub-division of one district of the state. These include Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Charaideo, Sivasagar, Jorhat, Golaghat, Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao districts.
The act was revoked from other parts of Assam on April 1, 2022. Since then, the state government has reportedly been working towards removing the act from the rest of the state.
BJP-led central govt made consistent efforts to resolve insurgency in Assam: CM
CM Sarma has on several occasions claimed that the central government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah has made consistent efforts to resolve the insurgency in the state by engaging in talks with the insurgents and signing peace accords at a historic pace. “Almost all tribal insurgent groups that once existed in the state have now assimilated with the mainstream life after signing accords with the government. We have made Assam free of tribal insurgency and efforts are on to facilitate the peace talks at the earliest with the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA),” the Chief Minister said recently.
ULFA is the last of the insurgent groups in Assam: Police
It may be mentioned that the decision to withdraw AFSPA also indicates the progress made in the peace talks with ULFA.
“The only insurgent group that exists now on the soil of Assam is the ULFA, which is in talks with the government. The settlement is not far. Once a peace accord is signed with the ULFA, the only group that will be left to deliberate with is the ULFA-Independent, which is mostly operating out of Myanmar and has a very negligible presence in Assam,” said a top police official of the state.
