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Gen Bikram Singh's appointment: JK sees some hope on AFSPA issue
With just one announcement in the change of the guard in the Indian Army, the whole discourse on the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Jammu and Kashmir has transformed from skepticism to high optimism.
With just one announcement in the change of the guard in the Indian Army, the whole discourse on the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Jammu and Kashmir has transformed from skepticism to high optimism.
The government here hopes that the new army chief would be flexible on the AFSPA issue, governmental sources told Hindustan Times, after their stiff stand off with the outgoing Chief of Army Staff Gen. VK Singh over the issue.
The chief minister who had hosted breakfast for the army chief in November last year had failed to break the ice on the recall of AFSPA from some areas of Jammu and Kashmir, where army had neither been deployed nor conducted operations for years together. Thereafter, there has been little or no communication between the state government and the army since then. For Omar Abdullah, the removal of AFSPA has become a matter of political prestige. He wants his October 21st (2011) promise of removing the special powers of the security forces to be translated into action on the ground.
That has not been happening so far.
Sources in the government made it clear that they would wait for the change of the guard at the army chief’s level before resuming talks on the AFSPA.
“The policy issues are not guided by these changes, a policy is a policy”, said a senior army officer on condition of anonymity.
But the perception and the tone and tenor of the dialogue can change with the change of the individuals at the top, according to sources in the state government.
The AFSPA which gives immunity to the soldiers in counter-insurgency operations for their acts of omission and commission, is in force in 20 out of 22 districts of the state.
