Imphal: Manipur Home Minister Gaikhangam on Thursday said the government was all prepared to protect and look after the health of social activist Irom Chanu Sharmila but did not comment on the withdrawal of the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers (Assam and Manipur) Act 1958 from the state.
Gaikhangam said the demand of Sharmila, who has been on fast for the past 14 years demanding withdrawal of the act and was recently absolved of the charge of trying to commit suicide, was not a personal one.
Official sources said the state government was considering under which sections of laws or acts Sharmila would be rearrested after her release by a local court which acquitted her of the charge of attempt to commit suicide saying there was no evidence of it.
After her release from a make-shift prison here, Sharmila supported by hundreds of womenfolk and social organisations had walked free on Wednesday from the make-shift prison at J N Government Hospital where a room has been converted into a jail for her. Soon afterwards she began her fast at a place near the hospital.
“I will continue to fast till my demand (withdrawl of AFSPA) is met. The order of the sessions court that I am not attempting to commit suicide (by launching fast to remove the controversial Act) is welcome,” she had said.
Irom Chanu Sharmila has also decided to keep her vow of neither entering her house nor meeting her mother till the government repeals AFSPA.
Sharmila, 42, is now continuing her 14-year-old fast from a small makeshift shelter outside the government-run Jawahar Lal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences and Hospital in Imphal where she was forced fed through nose under police detention. Her house where her mother and brother stay is only a few metres away from the hospital.
“But Sharmila has decided not to go to the house nor meet her mother till her demands of repealing the ‘draconian’ Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is met by the government,”
Sharmila’s brother Irom Singhajit told PTI from Imphal. Sharmila has, however, been meeting his elder brother ever since she walked out of the hospital-turned-prison yesterday after a local court absolved her of the charge of attempt to commit suicide by means of fasting.
“My mother has said that let her continue the fast and I will meet her only when her mission is accomplished,” Singhajit said. After Sharmila began her fast on November 5, 2000, she had declared that she would not see her mother during the fasting period to avoid any emotional outbursts. Since then, the duo had seen each other only once when her mother Shakhi Devi, in his eighties, was also admitted to the same hospital in 2009. “I don’t want her to be weak in this fight.
“She needs continuous courage to go on,” Shakhi had told reporters earlier. (PTI)