Shillong, Dec 6: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma has expressed his strong opposition to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), stating that the Act has been counter-productive for the people of the North Eastern region. He said the draconian act has only brought ‘pain and suffering’ to the people of the region. He also stated that the National People’s Party will be writing to the Centre to repeal this law.

“The stand that we (NPP) have taken on the Armed Forces Special Power Act has been there for a very long time. It’s not that we just decided this… from our leader Mr. Late P.A. Sangma’s time we have opposed the Armed Forces Special Power Act,” he said on Monday while reacting to the killing of 13 civilians by Army in Nagaland’s Mon district on Saturday.

Terming the incident as unfortunate, he said there is a need to look at the larger point, which is about the issues faced by the Northeast. Listing out the numerous issues of the region, he said AFSPA was brought in thinking that it will solve all of these problems, but that hasn’t been the case.

At the same time, he said they all agree that issues such as development, youth, insurgency, identity, peace, the law and order situation, and national security concerning the region need to be addressed but AFSPA hasn’t helped one bit it addressing any of these major issues. If anything, it has been a bane on the people.

“Now, law and order is a problem, but then some people felt that this AFSPA is the way to move forward… But then we’ve seen that the stand of putting the Armed Forces Special Power Act has not really given any results. And in the last many, many years that the Armed Forces Special Power Act has been there, it has only been counter-productive and there has been more unrest and it had situations where a lot of precious lives have been lost and people have to go through a lot of pain and suffering,” Sangma said.

The NPP National President also stated that they are very clear in their stand that the abovementioned issues need to be addressed but AFSPA is not the answer to them.

“There are many other ways to address those issues and Arm Forces Special Power Act definitely is not the way to address those issues and that is why we continue to keep our stand against the Armed Forces Special Power Act, and we will urge the government of India to repeal this draconian Act,” he said.