Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s announcement at a police commemoration ceremony that AFSPA and Disturbed Areas Act will be lifted in a few days from some civilian areas hasn’t generated much public interest even while the move will be highly welcome once it comes through.  The reason for this is that the successive governments have failed to get the Centre to revoke the much-reviled law despite making a shrill public noise about the need to do it. In fact, last year, Omar had made a strong pitch for withdrawal of AFSPA, seeking to use the concession to address the raging unrest in Valley. However, after some hopeful signs that saw home minister P Chidambaram also coming on board, the demand was finally shot down. And defense establishment played an important role in aborting the move. The army’s contention is that revoking AFSPA and DAA would substantially curtail its scope for effectively conducting anti-insurgency operations in the State.  Deprived of immunity against prosecution, the security personnel will have their hands tied to the back in their fight against militancy. Army also invokes the looming threat of a renewed spell of insurgency once militants take shelter in the areas where there is no AFSPA in force. However, this argument fails to take into account the remarkable improvement in the situation over the past some years. Militancy that warranted this law is now conspicuously absent from the larger scene of the Valley. In fact, there is little trace of it in the civilian areas. To persist with AFSPA and DAA to tackle the intermittent spells of civilian unrest is by any measure an unjustified response. What makes the argument further untenable is that security forces adamantly refuse to take a prompt corrective action in obvious cases of human rights violations. Therefore, it is time that the defense establishment reconsiders its opposition to the AFSPA revocation. More so, when it is an elected state government that thinks it is now fit to do away with the law from the civilian areas.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 23 Oct 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 24 Oct 2011 00:00:00 IST