Dimapur, November 19 (MExN): Observing November 19 as a nationwide protest day against the continuation of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), scores of prominent human rights activists from different backgrounds such as media, university teachers, women activists, lawyers, and student’s movement from Delhi including active support groups from the Northeast undertook a symbolic protest with placards and slogans shouting at one of Delhi’s busiest traffic point at ITO today.
This united protest was directed against the continuation of Armed Forces Powers Act and intensification of militarization in the Indian sub-continent particularly northeast region; Opposing military rule in Pakistan Myanmar and Bangladesh and to support peoples struggle against military regimes, was participated by many individual activists and groups such as Peoples Union for Democratic Rights(PUDR), Naga Students Union Delhi(NSUD), Students Federation of India (SFI), Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union(JNUSU), All India Students Association(AISA), Lok Raj Sanghathan, Burma solidarity group, Campaign against Shwe Gas Company, Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights(NPMHR), Sinlung Indigenous Peoples Human Rights Organization, Hmar students, All India Progressive Women Association, Manab Adhikar Sangram Samiti(MASS) from Assam and Meities From Imphal.
The protest gathering reiterates that there is only one way out from this web of unjust militarization especially for ‘40 million people of northeast and Kashmir who lived under martial rule for the past more than 60 years’ and that is through a united and persistent protest by all against AFSPA – for its unconditional repeal. The pamphlet bluntly states that ‘long term army deployment alienates people instead of convincing them’.
The protest pamphlet reaffirmed that ‘when political solutions are sought, if unaccompanied with sincerity on the part of the government, the possibility of lasting peace recedes. The decade long ceasefire between the Indian government and the Naga people has not meant either withdrawal of AFSPA or reduction in deployment of forces. As a result, the armed forces, have entrenched themselves even more firmly within Naga society.’
Further it raised some uncomfortable questions such as ‘Should peoples’ aspiration be dealt with militarily? More importantly, should the Indian state, or for that matter, any democratic state, demand subjection and loyalty at the point of a gun? Occupational rule is never just or desirable. And this is precisely what AFSPA does.’
Commenting on the prevalence of impunity the statement states ‘it is not easy to prosecute the security forces for offences as the Act provides immunity to them. Wherever such absolute power exists, those empowered turn criminal. So, rapes, torture, custodial deaths, enforced disappearances or fake encounters happen and happen repeatedly, precisely because guilty officials know that the law protects them.,
.jpg)
