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Shillong: India's apex
human rights panel Thursday said it has no jurisdiction to
recommend to the state governments to repeal the Armed Forces
(Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), but has asked them to consider
review of the controversial legislation.
"The state governments have to take a decision to repeal the act
as it is a policy decision. The NHRC has, therefore, never
recommended for its repeal," National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)
chairperson Justice (retd) K.G. Balakrishnan told journalists here
Wednesday night.
Balakrishnan, who attended the NHRC's camp sittings in Shillong,
the state capital of Meghalaya, made it clear that the commission
has never recommended repeal of the AFSPA.
"The commission has asked the state governments to review the act
as it cannot be viewed as a permanent feature. Now it is up to the
wisdom of the state governments to do so," he said.
Balakrishnan said the commission has taken up complaints from
Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir in cases relating to the AFSPA's
alleged abuses and most of them were settled.
"The home ministry has sent its reply on the cases and on several
occasions the cases were settled," he said.
Rights activists say that the AFSPA, which is enforced in Jammu
and Kashmir, Manipur, Tripura, Assam and Nagaland and some other
parts of the northeast like Meghalaya, gives the armed forces
authority to kill or detain terror suspects in insurgency-prone
areas.
However, army officials engaged in counter-insurgency operations
maintain that it is for the central and the state governments to
decide whether to repeal the act or let it continue.
Meghalaya Governor R.S. Mooshahary, who favoured the repeal of the
AFSPA in the region, had said that its prolonged use had alienated
the civil society.
"We cannot contain insurgency-related violence by alienating the
citizens; we can do so more effectively by involving them," said
Mooshahary, a former chief of the Border Security Force and the
National Security Guard.
Irom Sharmila Chanu, a human rights activist, has been on
indefinite strike for nearly a decade in Manipur, demanding the
withdrawal of the AFSPA from the state.
Several human rights groups, including the powerful North East
Students' Organisation (NESO), have also been demanding revocation
of the AFSPA from the northeastern region.
In view of the outcry against the AFSPA, the central government
had appointed a five-member committee headed by Supreme Court
Judge B.P. Jeevan Reddy a few years ago to examine whether the act
was required or not.
After visiting all affected states, the committee submitted its
report to the central government in October 2006. The government
has not yet made public the committee's findings.
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