SHILLONG, MAR 3: Buttering the demand for the repeal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958, the North East Dialogue Forum (NEDF) reminded that in 2005, the Justice Jeevan Reddy Commission of Enquiry and Justice Santosh Hegde Committee Report had recommended AFSPA be repealed even as it appeal to all the MPs to support the demand for the repeal of this draconian act that is imposed in most of the north eastern states.
In a letter to all the MPs in the Indian parliament, NEDF consultant PBM Basaiawmoit said,“I passionately and fervently appeal to you lawmakers in India’s Parliament to cast aside political differences and ideologies but resolve with one voice for repealing and revoking AFSPA.”
Basaiawmoit said the NEDF is appealing on behalf of all those who have lost loved ones, bread winners, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, uncles and aunties to the bullet of the military, para-military and state police who have been given powers under the AFSPA to take action on mere suspicion and “mistaken identity” as they are immune from being taken to the civil court.
According to Basaiawmoit, almost all the northeastern states comes under this draconian act, including parts of Meghalaya. The Act is also invoked in Jammu and Kashmir.
Basaiawmoit argued in the letter that in most cases the innocent and ordinary citizen are the ones who are victimized with lives being lost and women raped. It happened earlier in Mizoram and Nagaland and situation is very acute in Manipur today,” Basaiawmoit said.
Stating that there have been protests and representations to have this Act repealed and since November, 2000, he said reminded that Iron Lady of Manipur, Irom Sharmila had been undergoing indefinite hunger strike until AFSPA is repealed. She has been arrested under Section 309 IPC (attempt to commit suicide) since that year but released only one day in a year and again re-arrested and this has been going on for more than 14 years now. While under detention, she was kept alive by force feeding her, Basaiawmoit said in the letter.
Basaiawmoit pointed out that in August, 2004, the Executive Committee of the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) had also written to the then President and Prime Minister to have the Act repealed. The Peoples’ Forum Pre-Assembly and Quadrennial Assembly held in Bengaluru in April, 2012, had also passed resolutions for repealing the act.
Basaiawmoit also informed that former Meghalaya’s governor RS Moshahary, former DG of BSF, was also of the opinion that AFSPA should be repealed. Many eminent persons, writers and analysts had expressed that such a law, similar to military rule has no place in a democracy. However, all these have fallen on deaf ears, Basaiawmoit lamented. – By Our Reporter
Hopefully with the same enthu our Rev PBM Basaiawmoit, NCCI, NEDF Govts together with the armies, states polices to work tandemly to end militancy group from the NER India one and for all. Atleast, peoples of the region will live peacefully.