Kohima:The North East Students’ Organisation (NESO) has organised a Consultative Meeting with student leaders in Nagaland at Kohima, soliciting youth opinion on the infringement of human rights resulting from the implementation of the infamous Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in various parts of the region since 1958.
In a release on Thursday, besides the NESO delega-tion, a host of student leaders including former and present officials of the Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) and federating units on Wednesday programme.
During the meeting, it was discussed that AFSPA has brought about militari-sation of the north east and innocent people have directly or indirectly felt the pains, as it crushes their indigenous identity as well as their right to live.
The house also agreed that the time has come for the government of India to pay attention to the north east and redress the social injustice meted to the peop-le of this region through the ‘demeaning and unjust racist law’ that is in AFSPA.
NESO secretary general Sinam Prakash highlighted that the organisation is holding similar consultative meets with the youth and student bodies of the North East states, to share and exchange views on AFSPA and how to build construc-tive steps to urge the Centre to repeal the ‘draconian Act’.
He stated that the Act is a wholly debatable legisla-tion passed by the Indian Parliament, which was initially enforced in the Naga Hills and has now spread over to different states of the north east India, affecting generations of innocent lives, particu-larly children and women.
The NESO official pointed out that the claim is that the Act is to fight militants, whereas despite the presence of militant groups in other mainland Indian states, AFSPA is not enforced in those states except the North East.
Noted Naga writer and social activist Kaka D Iralu gave a brief historical background on how the AFSPA was instituted.
He said the Act was brought into existence ‘in the theatre of the killing fields of Nagaland in the 1950’s’, a case where he observes both the Indian government and its armed forces are guilty of doing the opposite of what they are appointed to do.
A Manipur-based youth NGO, REACHOUT lead coordinator, Kshetrimayum Onil alleged that the AFSPA is particularly designed for the north east region.
He remarked that many human rights organisations have challenged and critici-sed the Act, and several international platforms ultimately denounced the Act as a ‘racist law’, yet the Government of India remained unmoved.(UNI)