The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) grants special powers to the armed forces in "disturbed areas" in Northeast India and Jammu & Kashmir. It allows the use of force and gives immunity from prosecution. The act has been heavily criticized for enabling human rights abuses like arbitrary killings and torture. Irom Sharmila began a hunger strike in 2000 demanding the repeal of AFSPA after 10 civilians were killed by security forces. She has been force-fed for over 12 years while being regularly arrested and detained under charges of attempting suicide. There have been many calls and court cases challenging the constitutionality of AFSPA due to its violations of rights to life, equality, and freedom from torture.

1. Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)
What is AFSPA?
The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is an act empowering armed forces to deal
effectively in disturbed areas. Any area which is declared “disturbed” under disturbed areas act
enables armed forces to resort to the provisions of AFSPA. The choice of declaring any area as
‘disturbed’ vests both with state and central government. After an area comes under the ambit
of AFSPA, any commissioned officer, warrant officer, non-commissioned officer or another
person of equivalent rank can use force for a variety of reasons while still being immune to the
prosecution.
Any state govt. can declare the state of emergency and introduce AFSPA in the following
conditions:a) When the local administration fails to deal with local issues and the police proves inefficient
to cope with them.
b) When the scale of unrest or instability in the state is too large for the police to handle.
Legal Provisions of AFSPA
In an area declared “disturbed’’ an army officer is legal free to carry out following operations:
a) Fire upon or otherwise use force, even to the causing of death, against any person who is
acting in contravention of any law against "assembly of five or more persons" or possession of
deadly weapons
b) Destroy any shelter (private or govt.) from which armed attacks are made or likely to be
made or attempted to be made.
c) Arrest any person without warrant who has committed a cognizable offence or against whom
a reasonable suspicion exists that he has committed or is about to commit a cognizable offence.
d) Enter and search, without warrant, any premises for purpose of arrest or to recover any
person, arms, explosives.
e) To search and seize any vehicle suspected to be carrying an offender or any person against
whom any reasonable suspicion exists that he has or is about to commit an offence.
f) To provide legal immunity to the army personnel found involved in any violation or ethical
breach i.e., they cannot be sued or prosecuted.

2. History
The Armed Forces Special Powers Ordinance of 1942 was promulgated by the British on August
15, 1942 to suppress the Quit India Movement. Modeled on these lines, four ordinances—the
Bengal Disturbed Areas (Special Powers of Armed Forces) Ordinance; the Assam Disturbed
Areas (Special Powers of Armed Forces)Ordinance; the East Bengal Disturbed Areas (Special
Powers of Armed Forces) Ordinance; the United provinces Disturbed Areas(Special Powers of
Armed Forces) Ordinance were invoked by the central government to deal with the internal
security situation in the country in 1947 which arouse out of Partition of India .These
Ordinances were replaced by the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1948. Though the Act was
a temporary statute enacted for a period of one year, it continued till it was repealed in 1957.
The act was passed on 11 September 1958 by the parliament of India to provide special legal
security to the armed forces carrying out operations in the troubled areas of Arunachal
Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura (seven sisters). However, in
1990 the act was extended to the state of Jammu and Kashmir to confront the rising insurgency
in the area. In Manipur, despite opposition from the Central government, state government
withdrew the Act in some parts in August, 2004.
At the beginning of the century, the inhabitants of the Naga Hills, which extend across the IndoBurmese border, came together under the single banner of Naga National Council (NNC),
aspiring for a common homeland and self-governance. The Naga leaders were adamantly
against Indian rule over their people once the British pulled out of the region. Under the Hydari
Agreement signed between NNC and British administration, Nagaland was granted protected
status for ten years, after which the Nagas would decide whether they should stay in the Union
or not. However, shortly after the British withdrew, independent India proclaimed the Naga
Territory as part and parcel of the new Republic. The NNC proclaimed Nagaland's
independence. In retaliation, Indian authorities arrested the Naga leaders. An armed struggle
ensued and there were large casualties on either side. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act is
the product of this tension.
Similarly in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the flawed elections of 1987, in which the leaders
of MUF (Muslim United Front) had to face a fabricated defeat at the hands of mainstream
political parties, resulted in violent means of struggle for secession from India. The massive
militant uprising coupled with large scale infiltration of cross border militants turned the
situation volatile. In order to suppress this, the central government introduced AFSPA in 1990.
Consequences of the Act
The Act has been at the heart of concerns about human rights violations in the region, such as
arbitrary killings, torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and enforced
disappearances. A few of which include Operation Blue Bird, Heirangoithong Massacre, 1984;
Oinam Village Massacre, 1987; Tera Keithel Massacre, 1993; RMC (now RIMS) Massacre, 1995;
Tonsen Lamkhai Massacre, 1999. Then came the Malom Massacre in 2000, following which Ms.
Irom Chanu Sharmila started her longstanding hunger strike in Manipur. On 2 November 2000,

3. at around 3:20 pm ten innocent civilians including a 62 year old woman were shot dead by
personnel of the Assam Rifles at Malom Makha Leikai Boroi Makhong following a bomb attack
on an AR convoy along the Tiddim road. Following the explosion, the AR troops got down from
their vehicles and began firing towards people who were running for cover. Eight persons,
including a middle-aged woman, were killed at a set of bus stop at Malom Makha Leikai, while
two others died near a culvert inside the village.
After this, Sharmila, the 28-year-old daughter of a Grade IV veterinary worker, began to fast in
protest of the killings, taking neither food nor water. As her brother Irom Singhajit Singh
recalled, "The killings took place on 2 November 2000. It was a Thursday. Sharmila used to fast
on Thursdays since she was a child. That day she was fasting too. She has just continued with
her fast". 4 November is also given as the start day of her fast. On the Friday third of November
she had her last supper of pastries and sweets then touched her mother's feet and asked
permission to fulfill her bounden duty. Her primary demand to the Indian government was the
repeal of the AFSPA.
Three days after she began her strike, she was arrested by the police and charged with an
"attempt to commit suicide", which is unlawful under section 309 of the Indian Penal Code, and
was later transferred to judicial custody. Her health deteriorated rapidly, and the police then
forcibly had to use nasogastric intubation in order to keep her alive while under arrest. Since
then, Irom Sharmila has been regularly released and re-arrested every year since under IPC
section 309, a person who "attempts to commit suicide" is punishable "with simple
imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year or with fine, or with both. Ms Sharmila
has denied the charges against her saying, “I am protesting by non-violence at my best level”.
Irom Sharmila has not eaten a meal for more than 12 years. Three times a day, for 12 years,
nurses have poured a liquefied mixture of vitamins, carbohydrates, proteins and laxatives into a
plastic feeding-tube through her nose. Her hospital ward has been converted into a jail.
By 2004, Sharmila become an "icon of public resistance". Following her procedural release on 2
October 2006, for around four months, Irom Sharmila went to Raj Ghat, New Delhi, which she
said was "to pay floral tribute to my idol, Mahatma Gandhi." Later that evening, Sharmila
headed for Jantar Mantar for a protest demonstration where she was joined by students,
human rights activists and other concerned citizens. On 6 October, she was re-arrested by the
Delhi police for attempting suicide and was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences,
where she wrote letters to the Prime Minister, President, and Home Minister. At this time, she
met and won the support of Nobel-laureate Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Laureate and human rights
activist, who promised to take up Sharmila's cause at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
On July 11, 2004, Thangjam Manorama Devi was arrested from her home by the soldiers of the
paramilitary Assam Rifles and killed while in their custody. Her bullet-ridden corpse was left in a

4. field not far from her home where it was discovered by villagers. The Assam Rifles claimed she
had been shot dead while trying to escape.
Nude women protestors shouted slogans against alleged rape, torture and murder of 32-yearold Thangjam Manorama Devi by paramilitary (Assam Rifles) soldiers in Imphal, the capital of
North-Eastern Indian state of Manipur on Thursday, July 15, 2004. In an unusual protest, about
40 women stripped naked and staged an angry demonstration outside the Assam Rifles base to
protest this death in custody.
The death triggered a violent campaign against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA)
forcing the Manmohan Singh government to constitute a Commission (Justice B.P. Jeevan
Reddy Commission) which recommended repeal of the Act -- even the Administrative Reforms
Commission recommended repeal of the said Draconian Act.
There are several cases pending before the Indian Supreme Court which challenge the
constitutionality of the AFSPA. Some of these cases have been pending for over nine years.
Since the Delhi High Court found the AFSPA to be constitutional in the case of Indrajit Barua and
the Gauhati High court found this decision to be binding in People's Union for Democratic
Rights, the only judicial way to repeal the act is for the Supreme Court to declare the AFSPA
unconstitutional.
It is extremely surprising that the Delhi High Court found the AFSPA constitutional given the
wording and application of the AFSPA. The AFSPA is unconstitutional and should be repealed by
the judiciary or the legislature to end army rule in the North East.
Article 21 of the Indian Constitution guarantees the right to life to all people. It reads, "No
person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure
established by law." Judicial interpretation that "procedure established by law means a "fair,
just and reasonable law". Under section 4(a) of the AFSPA, which grants armed forces
personnel the power to shoot to kill, the constitutional right to life is violated. This law is not
fair, just or reasonable because it allows the armed forces to use an excessive amount of force.
The offenses under section 4(a) are: "acting in contravention of any law or order for the time
being in force in the disturbed area prohibiting the assembly of five or more persons or the
carrying of weapons or of things capable of being used as weapons or fire-arms, ammunition or
explosive substances". None of these offences necessarily involve the use of force. The armed
forces are thus allowed to retaliate with powers which are grossly out of proportion with the
offence.
Justice requires that the use of force be justified by a need for self-defense and a minimum
level of proportionality. As pointed out by the UN Human Rights Commission, since "assembly"

5. is not defined, it could well be a lawful assembly, such as a family gathering, and since
"weapon" is not defined it could include a stone. This shows how wide the interpretation of the
offences may be, illustrating that the use of force is disproportionate and irrational.
Several incidents show how the Border Security Force (BSF) and army personnel abuse their
powers in the North East. In April 1995, a villager in West Tripura was riding near a border
outpost when a soldier asked him to stop. The villager did not stop and the soldier shot him
dead. Even more grotesque were the killings in Kohima on 5 March 1995. The Rastriya Rifles
(National Rifles) mistook the sound of a tyre burst from their own convoy as a bomb attack and
began firing indiscriminately in the town. The Assam Rifles and the CRPF who were camped two
kilometers away heard the gunshots and also began firing. The firing lasted for more than one
hour, resulting in the death of seven innocent civilians, 22 were also seriously injured. Among
those killed were two girls aged 3 1/2 and 8 years old. The injured also included 7 minors.
Mortars were used even though using mortars in a civilian area is prohibited under army rules.
This atrocity demonstrates the level of tension prevalent in the North East. For a tire burst to be
mistaken for a bomb proves that the armed forces are perpetually under stress and live under a
state of siege.
In the Indrajit Barua case, the Delhi High Court found that the state has the duty to assure the
protection of rights under Article 21 to the largest number of people. Couched in the rhetoric of
the need to protect the "greater good", it is clear that the Court did not feel that Article 21 is a
fundamental right for the people of Assam. The Court stated, "If to save hundred lives one life is
put in peril or if a law ensures and protects the greater social interest then such law will be a
wholesome and beneficial law although it may infringe the liberty of some individuals."
This directly contradicts Article 14 of the Indian Constitution which guarantees equality before
the law. This article guarantees that "the State shall not deny to any person equality before the
law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India." The AFSPA is in place in
limited parts of India. Since the people residing in areas declared "disturbed" are denied the
protection of the right to life, denied the protections of the Criminal Procedure Code and
prohibited from seeking judicial redress, they are also denied equality before the law. Residents
of non-disturbed areas enjoy the protections guaranteed under the Constitution, whereas the
residents of the Northeast live under virtual army rule. Residents of the rest of the Union of
India are not obliged to sacrifice their Constitutional rights in the name of the "greater good".
Army officers have accused High Court judges of weakening military powers in the North East,
exemplifying that the armed forces are not interested in complying with civil law standards. Any
attempt by the courts to oblige compliance with police procedure is ignored.
In a report on the AFSPA to the UN Human Rights Committee in 1991, Nandita Haksar, a lawyer
who has often petitioned the Guwahati High Court in cases related to the AFSPA, explains how
in practice this leaves the military's victims without a remedy. Firstly, there has not been a
single case of any one seeking such permission to file a case in the North East. Given that the

6. armed forces personnel conduct themselves as being above the law and the people are
alienated from the state government, it is hardly surprising that no one would approach Delhi
for such permission. Secondly, when the armed forces are tried in army courts, the public is not
informed of the proceedings and the court martial judgments are not published. In a meeting
with the government National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), a representative of SAHRDC
was able to discuss cases where BSF and armed forces in Jammu and Kashmir were punished
for abuses. Yet, the results of these trials were not published and the NHRC representative
stated that it would endanger the lives of the soldiers.
Instances of human rights abuses by the army have shown that unless there is public
accountability there is no incentive for the army to change its conduct. This was exemplified in
Burundi when security forces killed 1,000 people in October 1991. Amnesty International
reported, "The failure to identify those responsible for human rights violations and bring them
to justice has meant that members of the security forces continue to believe that they are
above the law and can violate human rights with impunity." Without the transparency of the
public accounting, it is impossible to be sure that perpetrators are actually punished.
The armed forces in the North East have systematically tortured the people they arrested under
the AFSPA. Article 7 of the ICCPR prohibits torture and this also is a non-derogable right.
Moreover, the prohibition against torture is a "norm of customary law". Under the UDHR,
torture is defined as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is
intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official on a person for such purposes
as obtaining from him or a third person information or confession, punishing him for an act he
has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating him or other person."
During Operation Bluebird, the Assam Rifles committed gross abuses of this right. The
Operation was launched in the wake of an attack on an Assam Rifles outpost in Oinam, a village
in Manipur. The attack is believed to have been carried out by the NSCN. The armed forces
retaliated by perpetuating atrocities on the village people of Oinam. The Amnesty International
report found that more than 300 villagers claimed they were beaten, "some torture victims
were left for dead ... others were reportedly subjected to other forms of torture including
inserting chili powder into sensitive parts of the body, being given electric shocks by means of a
hand operated dynamo ... or being buried up to the neck in apparent mock executions." The
headman of the village was also tortured and reported, "I was called out and repeatedly
interrogated throughout the day ... I was beaten by the officers an jawans ... they also
indiscriminately attacked the villagers ... chili powder dissolved in water was rubbed into the
nostrils, eyes and soft parts of the body and officers and jawans took sadistic pleasure from the
cries of pain by the victims."
Under similar circumstances in "Operation Rhino", Rajputana Rifles surrounded the village of
Bodhakors on October 4, 1991. An extensive house to house searched was conducted during
which women were sexually harassed and men were taken to interrogation camps. They were
beaten up and kept without food or water. During this combing operation not a single insurgent
was found. The People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) noted, "It is very difficult to understand

7. the logic such useless raids, mass torture and interrogations, unless the purpose is taken to be
the creation of pure terror for some sinister and ulterior motives."
Impact
In 2004, in the wake of intense agitation that was launched by several civil society groups
following the death of Thangjam Manorama, while in the custody of the Assam Rifles and the
indefinite fast undertaken by Irom Sharmila, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil visited Manipur
and reviewed the situation with the concerned state authorities. In the same year, Prime
Minister, Manmohan Singh assured activists that the central government would consider their
demand sympathetically.
The central government accordingly set up a five-member committee under the Chairmanship
of Justice B P Jeevan Reddy, former judge of the Supreme Court. The panel was given the
mandate of reviewing the provisions of AFSPA and advising the Government of India whether
(a) to amend the provisions of the Act to bring them in consonance with the obligations of the
government towards protection of human rights; or
(b) to replace the Act by a more humane Act.
The Reddy committee submitted its recommendations on June 6, 2005. However, the
government failed to take any concrete action on the recommendations even after almost a
year and a half. The then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee had rejected the withdrawal or
significant dilution of the Act on the grounds that “it is not possible for the armed forces to
function” in “disturbed areas” without such powers.
The 147-page report recommends, “The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, should be
repealed.” During the course of its work, the committee members met several individuals,
organisations, parties, institutions and NGOs, which resulted in the report stating that “the Act,
for whatever reason, has become a symbol of oppression, an object of hate and an instrument
of discrimination and high handedness.” The report clearly stated that “It is highly desirable and
advisable to repeal the Act altogether, without of course, losing sight of the overwhelming
desire of an overwhelming majority of the [North East] region that the Army should remain
(though the Act should go).”
Report of the Committee, headed by Justice (Retd) B.P. Jeevan Reddy, to Review the Armed
Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 was submitted to the Government of India in June 2005.
Later, Justice Verma Committee was appointed after the Delhi rape case and the agitations that
followed in Delhi and elsewhere in India. The Committee was required to put up
recommendations to modify the laws relating to rape and connected offences against women.

8. The Committee had sought suggestions from the public on the issue of laws for protection and
safety of women etc. The Report also touches on the subject of violence against women, more
so rape by the military personnel working under the protection of Armed Forces Special Powers
Act (AFSPA) Possibly the recommendations relating to military’s alleged involvements in rape
cases etc during its deployment under AFSPA, have come from certain NGOs and others from
insurgency infested regions.
A Commission headed by former judge Santosh Hegde with former Chief Election Commission
J.M. Lyngdoh and retired IPS officer A.K. Singh as its members, was formed by the apex court to
investigate alleged cases of extra judicial killings in Manipur. In September last year, the
Extrajudicial Execution Victim Families’ Association (EEVFAM)) along with Human Rights Alert
(HRA) submitted a list of 1,528 cases of killings in Manipur since 1979 before the Supreme Court
and demanded investigation into the deaths.
In its 100-page report, the Commission pointed out that the six sample cases of encounters it
investigated, it found that they were “not genuine” and that “maximum force” was used to kill
people. “Though the Act gives sweeping powers to security forces even to extend of killing a
suspect with protection against prosecution, it does not provide any protection to the citizens
against its possible misuse…Normally, the greater the power, the greater the restraint and
stricter the mechanism to prevent its misuse or abuse. But in case of the AFSPA in Manipur this
principle appears to have been reversed,” the report added.
Leaders like Geelani sahib, Omar Abdullah, Mirwaiz (Umar Farooq), Engineer Rasheed and Mufti
Mohammad Sayeed have been advocating for the revocation of AFSPA.
Role of media in this particular issue has been very crucial. Local newspapers like Hueiyein
Lanpao, Sangai Express, E-Pao, Nagaland Post, Assam Chronicle etc have been covering all the
incidents and developments about the Act and the protests against it extensively. Newspapers
like The Hindu, DNA, Times Of India, Telegraph India, Indian Express, One India, too have been
covering about the issue. But inspite of all this, majority of the country’s population does not
know about the Act or the atrocities caused by it. This is due to the fact that many people think
that opposing AFSPA is opposing the army, and initiating a war against government. Media
comes in at this point, where spreading awareness among people becomes important. The
media, so far, has termed the ongoing fight against AFSPA as a ‘movement’, ‘protest’ and a
‘campaign’. But as per definition, it is a protest, though it has had sustained action, but without
any institutional framework.