#afspa ‪‪Meghalaya‬, ‪Arunachal Pradesh‬, ‪Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act‬, ‪Ministry of Home Affairs‬‬

AFSPA removed from Meghalaya, restricted in Arunachal Pradesh

Since 1997, the intensity of insurgency in the north-east has been on the wane, and civilian and security forces' casualties were the lowest in 2017, government data shows.

The AFSPA has been in force in Nagaland, Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir for several decades, and since the early 1990s in Assam.


"AFSPA was totally withdrawn from all areas of Meghalaya from April 1. In Arunachal, it is down from 16 police stations to eight," the official said.

The Act has been extended by another six months in three districts of Arunachal Pradesh -- Tirap, Longding and Changlang -- which border Myanmar and specific areas under eight police stations of seven other districts bordering Assam. These three districts have under the AFSPA since January 2016.

The Act was withdrawn from Tripura in 2015 and in past one year, fewer areas in northeast are under the Act, the official said, adding that the Act was only in place in Meghalaya for a 20-km area along the Assam border and not in operation in Mizoram.

1.    In Assam, 63 NDFB cadres killed and 1052 cadres,linkmen were arrested between December 2014 and March 2018.

2.    Compared to 2016 there has been a 37 percent fall in insurgency incidents in NE region; 30 percent reduction in forces killed; and 23 percent fall in civilians killed.

3.    Between 2014 and 2018, there has been a 63 percent decline in insurgency incidents 83% fall in civilian deaths; and 40 percent fall in security personnel killings.

Military and intelligence assessments have strongly indicated that insurgency has been wiped out from Tripura and Mizoram, and there has been a marked improvement in the security situation in Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Manipur, said the Home Ministry official who asked not to be identified.

Armed Forces Special Powers (Assam and Manipur) Act, 1958:

In 1951, the Naga National Council Nation’.There was a boycott of the first general election of 1952 which later extended to a boycott of government schools and officials.[12] In order to deal with the situation, the Assam government imposed the Assam Maintenance of Public Order (Autonomous District) Act in the Naga Hills in 1953 and intensified police action against the rebels. When the situation worsened, Assam deployed the Assam Rifles in the Naga Hills and enacted the Assam Disturbed Areas Act of 1955, providing a legal framework for the paramilitary forces and the armed state police to combat insurgency in the region. But the Assam Rifles and the state armed police could not contain the Naga rebellion and the rebel Naga Nationalist Council (NNC) formed a parallel government "The Federal Government of Nagaland" on 23 March 1956.The Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Powers Ordinance 1958 was promulgated by the President Dr. Rajendra Prasad on 22 May 1958. It was replaced by the Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Powers Act, 1958 on 11 September 1958.

The Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Powers Act, 1958 empowered only the Governors of the States and the Administrators of the Union Territories to declare areas in the concerned State or the Union Territory as 'disturbed'. The reason for conferring such a power as per "Objects and Reasons'" appended to the Bill was that "Keeping in view the duty of the Union under Article 355 of the Constitution, interalia, to protect every State against internal disturbance, it is considered desirable that the Central government should also have power to declare areas as 'disturbed', to enable its armed forces to exercise the special powers". The territorial scope of Act also expanded to the five states of the North-East - Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. In addition, the words "The Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Powers Act, 1958" were substituted by "Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958", getting the acronym of AFSPA, 1958.

Recently the Tripura state government has decided to withdraw the controversial Act, citing significant reduction in the extent of terrorist activities in the state.[14] In June 2015, after review, the AFSPA in Nagaland state was extended by one more year.[15]

In November 2016, Government of India has extended AFSPA in three districts of Arunachal Pradesh- Tirap, Changlang and Longding. The period has further been extended by another 6 months in above three districts of Arunachal Pradesh in April, 2018.These have been declared as “disturbed area” under Section 3 of the AFSPA. In these districts, Naga underground factions including National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) and NSCN (Khaplang) are involved in extortion, recruitment of locals, and rivalry.