Delhi meet takes forward public cry for repealing AFSPA
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, March 27 2012: A public meeting held today at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi has pressed for repeal of the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) 1958 .

The public meeting was jointly organised by All India Revolutionary Women's Organisation (AIRWO), CPI (ML), Manipur Intellectual Forum and Democratic Women's Front Manipur (DWF).

Speaking on occasion, Sapam Modhubala of DWF said that many innocent lives have been lost in the North Eastern India especially in Manipur in the name of counter insurgency under the AFSPA.

Many civil movements have been launched to exert pressure on the government to repeal AFSPA from NE states and J&K .

Irom Chanu Sharmila has been fasting for the last 11 years over the same demand.

However, the India government is not paying any attention.

As a democratic country, it is very unfortunate for India to ignore such decade-long democratic movement and public voices against the Act which gives extensive power to uniformed personnel, she lamented.

National Secretary, CPI (ML) said that Indian Army was established by the then British government to suppress the Indians during their colonial rule.

Even after India got its freedom from the colonial rule of British, they are continuing the same colonial rule in NE states, Jammu & Kashmir by imposing the colonial Act AFSPA and other parts of the country where Maoist have their stronghold by killing many innocent lives in the name of hunting down the Maoist cadres.

CPI (ML) is one of the parties which initiated revolutionary movement for a free India during the British colonial rule, he said, while recalling that he himself spent many times in jail for being part of the Naxalite movement.

Sapam Shyamsunder, State Secretary CPI (ML), who also attended the meeting, explained that AFSPA was first an ordnance of the British colonial rule to suppress the Indian freedom movement.

After India got its freedom, the India government converted the ordnance into an Act and has been imposing the same in NE India and Jammu & Kashmir.

This clearly shows how the Centre thinks these areas as their colonial area.

Under the Act, the Centre has been suppressing the people of Manipur for long, he added.

Sharmistha Choudhury, General Secretary of AIRWO; Benij Bihari, UP State Secretary of CPI (ML); KK Das, Assam General Secretary of CPI (ML) and Gopalmacha, President of Manipur Intellectual Forum also addressed the meeting.

Later, police foiled a mass rally taken out after the meeting.

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