{"id":14100,"date":"2021-02-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/25-02-2021\/afspa-extended-in-assam\/"},"modified":"2021-02-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T00:00:00","slug":"afspa-extended-in-assam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/25-02-2021\/afspa-extended-in-assam","title":{"rendered":"AFSPA Extended in Assam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Context &#8211;<\/strong>The <strong>Governor of Assam<\/strong> has declared the entire state of<strong> Assam as a \u2018disturbed area\u2019 for <\/strong>up to 6 (six) months as per powers conferred <strong>under section 3 of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, <\/strong>1958.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The order was issued in view of the <strong>state assembly elections<\/strong> due in April-May and recovery of arms and ammunition from some parts of the state.\n<ul>\n<li>The AFSPA was imposed in Assam in November 1990 and has been extended every six months since then after a review by the state government.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>About the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It was enacted by the Parliament and approved by the President in 1958.<\/li>\n<li>It confers certain <strong>special powers on members of the Armed Forces<\/strong> (military forces, air forces operating on the ground as land forces and any other armed forces of the Union (CRPF, BSF, ITBP etc)for carrying out <strong>proactive operations against the insurgents in a highly hostile environment. <\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>They have the authority to prohibit a <strong>gathering of five or more persons<\/strong> in an area.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The AFSPA is also in force in the <strong>entire Nagaland, certain districts of Arunachal Pradesh, and most parts of Manipur barring the Imphal municipal areas.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Provisions &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Under Section 3 &#8211;<\/strong>The Central Government or the Governor of the State or administrator of the Union Territory can declare the whole or part of the State or Union Territory as a <strong>disturbed area. <\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>An area can be disturbed due to <strong>differences or disputes between members<\/strong> of <strong>different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities. <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Section 4<\/strong>&#8211; It<strong> gives the Army powers<\/strong> to <strong>search premises and make arrests without warrants,<\/strong> to use force even to the extent of causing death, destroy arms\/ammunition dumps, fortifications\/shelters\/hideouts and to stop, search and seize any vehicle.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Section 6-<\/strong>It stipulates that <strong>arrested persons and the seized property <\/strong>are to be made over to <strong>the police with the least possible delay.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Section 7<\/strong>-It offers <strong>protection of persons<\/strong> acting in <strong>good faith in their official capacity<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>The prosecution is permitted only after the sanction of the Central Government.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Significance &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Armed Forces are deployed <\/strong>in <strong>counter-insurgency \/ terrorist operations<\/strong> when all other forces available to the State <strong>have failed to bring the situation under control.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Armed forces operating in such an environment require certain special powers and protection in the form of an enabling law.<\/li>\n<li>Therefore, AFSPA is absolutely essential to combat insurgency in the country and protect the borders.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Criticism<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It provides absolute powers to the security personnel without being accounted for.\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0This leads to various atrocities and human rights violations by the security agencies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Critics say the undemocratic act <strong>has failed to contain terrorism <\/strong>and <strong>restore normalcy <\/strong>in <strong>disturbed areas<\/strong>, as the number of <strong>armed groups <\/strong>has gone up after the act was established.\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0Many even hold it responsible for the spiralling violence in areas it is in force.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee was set up in 2005 to review Afspa and make recommendations.\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0It recommended that Afspa s<strong>hould be repealed<\/strong> and the<strong> Unlawful Activities Protection Act strengthened to fight militancy.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>It has been a controversial one, with human rights groups opposing it as being aggressive.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Terming the AFSPA as a &#8220;draconian law&#8221;, renowned human rights activist Irom Chanu Sharmila of Manipur had fought for 16 long years till mid-2016, demanding its repeal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Way Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>AFSPA is <\/strong>required to counter insurgencies and lack of development in the <strong>North-east region is also a major reason for the insurgency <\/strong>therefore the Government should take urgent <strong>steps to create new opportunities for growth and development.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>AFSPA should<\/strong> be made more <strong>comprehensive, with elaborate rules<\/strong> with respect to the <strong>method of investigations<\/strong> of <strong>alleged human rights violations<\/strong> to reduce the possibility of misusing it.<\/li>\n<li>The Army should<strong> carry out fresh investigations <\/strong>into all <strong>alleged cases of human rights <\/strong>violations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.financialexpress.com\/india-news\/afspa-extended-in-assam-for-another-six-months-ahead-of-assembly-elections\/2201493\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source :FE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context &#8211;The Governor of Assam has declared the entire state of Assam as a \u2018disturbed area\u2019 for up to 6 (six) months as per powers conferred under section 3 of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958. The order was issued in view of the state assembly elections due in April-May and recovery of arms [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/917914current-affairs (1).jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}