Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was on a one-day visit to Assam on Thursday, 28 April, said the Centre was working towards lifting the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) from the Northeast.
Addressing a "Peace, Unity and Development" rally at Diphu in Assam's Karbi Anglong district, PM Modi said, "For long, many states of the Northeast have been under AFSPA. But in the past eight years, because of peace and better law and order situation on the ground, we have lifted AFSPA from many parts of the region."
He also said that violent incidents in the region had reduced by 75 percent since 2014.
"That is why we were able to lift AFSPA first from Tripura, then Meghalaya," he said.
"In Assam, AFSPA has been in force for three decades, and the previous governments kept extending it. But in the past few years, the situation has improved so much that AFSPA was lifted from 23 districts," he said.
PM Modi further said that the Centre was working towards lifting the Act from Nagaland and Manipur.
He also lauded the chief ministers of the region for their efforts in solving the decades-old interstate boundary disputes. He added that BJP's "double engine government" had worked towards bringing peace and development to the state.
Citing the peace accords in Karbi Anglong, Bodo region and Tripura, the prime minister said, "Since 2014, there has been peace and development in the Northeast."
Earlier in the day, PM Modi inaugurated three colleges for veterinary science and agriculture in Diphu, laid the foundation stone and inaugurated seven cancer care centres in Dibrugarh and also launched the Amrit Sarovar Project to rejuvenate 2,950 waterbodies across the state.
About AFSPA
The AFSPA allows for armed forces to be conferred with sweeping powers to operate in areas designated as 'disturbed' and grants them immunity from prosecution without the Centre's sanction. As many as 14 civilians were killed by the Indian army in Nagaland on 4 December and 5 December in a series of incidents that were "deeply regretted" by the armed forces and the central government.
(With inputs from The Indian Express.)
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