New Delhi: A fresh attempt is being made to build consensus within the Government to amend the controversial Armed Forces Special (Powers) Act (AFSPA), Home Minister P Chidambaram indicated on Thursday.
"I am trying to revisit AFSPA but as you know one needs to build a consensus within the government before amendments can be brought before Parliament," Chidambaram said while replying to questions after presenting the monthly report for his Ministry.
"We are trying. You know we have tried in the past," he said during the press interaction on being asked whether AFSPA could be repealed in Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir.
He said in J&K there was a consensus within the Central Government that if the state withdraws the Disturbed Areas Act, AFSPA will automatically go.
"You know that in Kashmir, we have asked the state government to review the application of Disturbed Areas Act and if that act is reviewed, then automatically if the DA does not apply to areas in Kashmir, the AFSPA is not applied to that area in Kashmir.
"So we took that route in Kashmir. In Manipur, the demand is that AFSPA should be repealed. There is a Jeevan Reddy committee report. We have discussed this a couple of times."
"As I said, there is no consensus yet and I am trying to build consensus..I have not succeeded so far. There is a statement of the Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) that we will replace the AFSPA with a more humane act. So we are trying," he said.
The army has conveyed its apprehensions to the Defence Ministry that replacement of AFSPA or any dilution could hamper its operational capabilities to effectively deal with militancy and insurgency.
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