ACR flays Rijiju on AFSPA

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Itagar, April 12: The Aruchal Citizens Rights (ACR) has ridiculed the statement made by union MoS for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju on imposition of AFSPA in 12 districts of the state. "The union minister has failed to answer the questions raised by the state government and the various organizations and to satisfy the apprehensions raised by the people of the state," ACR Secretary, Joram Aatum said in a statement here today while welcoming the MPs' gesture for issuing a statement in response to concern of the state government and various organizations.

"Rijiju has said that declaration of the districts bordering Assam, in Aruchal Pradesh, as disturbed has been made with the sole purpose of ebling the forces to chase and arrest these terrorists and insurgents irrespective of the distance they cover in Aruchal Pradesh for a limited period till these violent Assam based groups are neutralized. Reading anything about this measure beyond this is improper and unfortute," he added. While lamenting on the fact that AFSPA was first imposed in the state in the three districts of Tirap, Changlang and Longwing in 1991 to deal with the ga insurgents, Astum exerted, "Since then 25 years have passed but the army has not been able to deal with the situation and AFSPA has not been revoked in these districts. This situation implies utter failure on the part of the armed forces even when they are armed with such a draconian law."

While questioning the Minister's justification on the extension of the AFSPA to 12 districts of the state the ACR stated, "When imposing AFSPA within 20 kms of the area bordering Assam did not yield any result in all these years Rijiju himself admits that security forces have been finding it increasingly difficult to act against them, even if they know their whereabouts."

"On the contrary, he blames the state government not being effective in dealing with the terrorists when it is the army which has failed the people for the last 25 years," quipped Aatum.

While stating that the minister had also failed to respond to the apprehensions of human rights violations of the armed forced in the aftermath of imposing AFSPA in other North Eastern States as documented by the Jeevan Reddy Commission and various other studies including that of the Institute of Defence Studies and Alysis (IDSA), the ACR called upon the home ministry and Centre to be fair and transparent in laying down any intelligence report or related information in front of the people of Aruchal Pradesh behind the imposition of this draconian law in districts like East and West Kameng, Lower Subansiri and Papum Pare, West and East Siang, and Lohit and Lower Dibang Valley.

ACR also called upon the home ministry to respect the federal character of the Constitution and consult and honor the views of the state government before imposing such a draconian and controversial legislation.