The Centre has extended the “disturbed area” tag under AFSPA for three districts of Arunachal Pradesh for six months more while withdrawing it partly from the state’s three other districts bordering Assam.
According to a Union Home Ministry notification, thedecision was taken after considering the present law and order situation in thesix districts of the state.
As per the notification, the three districts of ArunachalPradesh, which will continue to be designated as disturbed areas under AFSPAare Tirap, Changlang and Longding.
The designation, which allows imposition of AFSPA, will alsocontinue for the four police stations areas of the state’s three otherdistricts bordering Assam.
They include Namsai and Mahadevpur police stations in Namsaidistrict, Roing in Lower Dibang Valley district and Sunpura in Lohit district.
A home ministry official said the “disturbed area”tag was withdrawn from the four police station areas of the Arunchal’sdistricts on Assam border, due to the improvement of law and order situationthere.
The notification said the Union Home Ministry took thedecision exercising its powers conferred under section 3 of the Armed Forces(Special Powers) Act, 1958.
A review of the law and order situation in Arunachal’s sixdistricts was undertaken before the March 31 deadline for the validity of the”disturbed area” designation under the AFSPA.
The AFSPA is imposed in areas where armed forces arerequired to operate in aid to civil authorities. For AFSPA to become valid, anarea, however, needs to be declared disturbed either by the Central or thestate government under the section 3 of the 1958 Act.
Some parts of Arunachal Pradesh has presence of bannedmilitant outfits like NSCN, ULFA and NDFB, another official said.