The Nagaland Assembly on Monday unanimously passed a resolution demanding that the Centre withdraws the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act from the North East, and especially from Nagaland.
The resolution was passed in condemnation of the killing of 14 civilians by security forces in the state’s Mon district earlier this month. In a first information report, the Nagaland Police had said that the Army’s 21 Para Special Force had fired with “intention to murder and injure” the civilians.
On Monday, the Nagaland Assembly passed the resolution unanimously, which means that Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs of the state also supported it. The Nagaland government is led by the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party, an ally of the BJP.
The resolution also sought an apology from the authorities on the killings, and an assurance to provide justice.
On the evening of December 4, the Army’s 21 Para Special Force had opened fire at a pick-up van carrying coal miners from Tiru to Oting in Nagaland’s Mon district, killing six on board. They had apparently mistaken the group of workers for insurgents.
Angered by the killings, a crowd of protestors then set fire to the vehicles belonging to the Army. They opened fire again, killing seven more civilians.
The violence spilled over into Sunday afternoon after locals entered a camp of the Assam Rifles in the district headquarters of Mon. At least one more person was killed after security forces fired back at protestors.
Since the incident, several civil society groups and tribal bodies have called for the repeal of AFSPA. The law gives the military sweeping powers to search, arrest, and to open fire if they deem it necessary for “the maintenance of public order”. The Army personnel can do so with a degree of immunity from prosecution.
In 2015, the then Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar’s Cabinet had decided to lift the law from the state. Sarkar had said that there was no need to renew the “disturbed area” notification for 26 of the 74 police station jurisdictions in the state that were then under the ambit of AFSPA.
Under Section 3 of the AFSPA, an area needs to be declared disturbed either by the central or the state government, to implement the law. The notification for this is renewed after a review every six months. In most cases, the Centre takes a decision on this on the advice of the state government.
Meanwhile, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday said that that the state will continue to be under the AFSPA, PTI reported.
“The Assam government is of the view that if this kind of peaceful situation continues at a later date we will be able to take a call on whether we need AFSPA in entire Assam or we need it only in some parts,” Sarma told reporters in Guwahati.
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