The Army Chief, General V.K. Singh, has said that “all those who ask for a dilution of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act do so for narrow political gains”.
The move to dilute the AFSPA, incidentally, is to be taken up by the Union Cabinet shortly.
Union home minister P. Chidambaram has gone on record saying the government was considering “replacing the controversial AFSPA with a more humane law”. J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah has also been lobbying hard to replace the AFSPA. The AFSPA is in force in some Northeast states and in Jammu and Kashmir.
In an interview to the latest edition of a defence journal, SP’s Land Forces, Gen. Singh strongly opposed the move currently being initiated by the home ministry, the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and human rights organisations. “Any dilution or withdrawal of the AFSPA will lead to constraining our operations,” the Army Chief has said, arguing that “while the security forces have through relentless operations substantially controlled the violence levels in J&K, the terrorist threat remains real and the terror infrastructure across the border remains active”. He said, “In such an environment... we need legal protection.”
The Army for the record said the Army Chief has been referring to the context of local politics and separatist movements.