Libertatem Magazine Issue 2 | Page 21

The same recommendation to repeal AFSPA was also made by United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in February 2007. The Indian Military has ignored all these recommendation by saying that this act is necessary to maintain peace and harmony in such disputed area and overriding the powers mentioned in AFSPA will lead to internal disputes as well as external disputes. It is being argued by Lt General Arvind Sharma that if AFSPA is repealed then army will not be able to work in insurgency situations. However this doesn’t mean that government has the right to take away the Fundamental Right of Right to life of citizen of disputed area in an intentional or unlawful way. It doesn’t mean that state can violate the human rights of any individual guaranteed under by the constitution of India. But by introducing AFSPA, the government has violated fundamental rights of the people of eight states. Instead of maintaining peace in the states this has created conflicts in these states by arbitrary killing, cruelty, inhuman and d e g r a d e d treatment of the armed forces. I am not in favor of totally repealing this act because that will lead to various problems like increase in the terror and insurgency attacks. If this act is removed, the army will lose its control over the states and because of which i n f i l t ra t i o n f r o m Pakistan and China will going to rise. So total repealment in not the solution instead of that the government may reduce the powers of military men mentioned in this act. Instead of killing someone just on the basis of suspicion, they can arrest him and investigate against him. Legal proceeding should be done if a soldier commits any fake encounter. If government is declaring a particular area as ‘disturbed’ then the courts must have a say on that. A boundary should be made to restrict the soldiers because complete independence had led to military rule in these states. A boundary that will refrain the soldiers from committing any crime. 21