Defense Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said about the AFSPA law in Jammu and Kashmir that even the army of the country does not want this law to be in Jammu and Kashmir. Defense Minister was speaking in honor of the soldiers of 1971 war in Guwahati, Assam. This is not the first time that Rajnath Singh has spoken on the removal of AFSPA in the Kashmir Valley. During his visit to Jammu and Kashmir as Home Minister in 2015, Singh had said that the Armed Forces Act can be removed if the situation suits.
Addressing a gathering on Saturday to felicitate the soldiers of the 1971 war in Guwahati, Assam, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said that the country’s army also wants that the AFSPA law should be removed from Jammu and Kashmir at the earliest. The AFSPA was imposed in July 1990 in the Kashmir Valley and in August 2000 in the Jammu region to check insurgency.
Rajnath said that AFSPA has been removed from 15 police stations in Manipur and Nagaland. That in itself means a lot. This results in lasting peace and stability in the region. It is no small matter that the work of removing AFSPA is being done in the North Eastern states for the last 3-4 years. Recently, AFSPA was completely removed from 23 districts of Assam.
Significantly, on March 31, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had announced that the Center has decided to bring down the disturbed areas in Nagaland, Manipur and Assam under the ambit of AFSPA after decades. Following the Home Minister’s move, mainstream political parties in the Kashmir Valley had demanded the removal of AFSPA from Jammu and Kashmir as well.
Then National Conference spokesperson Tanveer Sadiq had said, “Not a day passes when someone from the Center or Union Territory does not talk about the better security situation in Jammu and Kashmir. If this is indeed the case, then why are the areas under AFSPA not being reduced as well.”