Shah said that there was a time when Assam was given Armed Forces Special Power Acts (AFSPA), adding that now youths are getting “new powers of jobs and aspirations”
Speaking in Assam’s Guwahati on Tuesday, Home Minister Amit Shah said that AFSPA has been removed from almost 60 per cent of the areas of the state that were under it and added that in the years to come, the state will be completely insurgency free and subsequently, AFSPA free.
“AFSPA have been removed from almost 60 percent area. I am sure in a few days and years to come Assam will be completely insurgency free and, hence, AFSPA free,” Home Minister Amit Shah said in Guwahati.
Shah said that there was a time when Assam was given Armed Forces Special Power Acts (AFSPA), adding that now youths are getting “new powers of jobs and aspirations”.
“Assam soon shall be militancy free. There has been no infiltration in Assam in the last six months. Youths of Assam now wants development instead of AFSPA. In coming day I hope that AFSPA shall be withdrawn from entire Assam. Assam police has achieved several milestone in the last one year, Amit Shah said.
Shah said that AFSPA was extended seven times after its implementation in the 1990s till the Modi government came to power. He added that after eight years of PM Modi’s rule, 23 districts in the state have been made AFSPA-free.
Amit Shah also said that peace agreements are being done one after the other with extremist groups, distracted youth is joining the mainstream and also that parleys are being held with neighbouring states to resolve seven decade-old issues.
Amit Shah’s assertion on complete removal of AFSPA from Assam is fresh in the series of the government assuring that the Northeast will in the future be free from the Act.
Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi too was in Assam where he said he hopes for peace in conflict-ridden areas in the Northeast, adding that AFSPA shall be removed if things return to normal.
“As peace is coming, we are changing rules. Now AFSPA too is removed from certain places because there is peace. In other places, too, we are trying if things are alright, then AFSPA will be removed from there too,” Modi said as he addressed a ‘unity, peace and development’ rally at Loringthepi in Assam’s Karbi Anglong area on April 28.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also last month said that all three wings of the defence forces are in favour of removal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) 1958 from the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir but the controversial act is in place due to the “situation.”
“AFSPA was earlier removed from Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. Recently, Home Minister Amit Shah has withdrawn the same from 23 districts in Assam and from areas under 15 police stations each in Manipur and Nagaland. AFSPA is being lifted from the Northeast due to durable peace and stability in the region,” Rajnath Singh said at a function in Guwahati.
