Tripura government has decided to extend the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, (AFSPA) in 34 police station areas of the State for another six months from January 1 to contain insurgency, official sources said on Saturday.
The decision to extend the AFSPA was taken in the meeting of the State-level coordination committee headed by the Chief Secretary, S.K. Panda recently, the sources said.
Earlier, the AFSPA was operational in 40 police station areas but now reduced to 32 police station areas as the insurgency has come down.
The act was first imposed in Tripura in 1997 when the insurgency was at its height.
However, the opposition Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT), has criticised the state government’s decision as ‘ridiculous.’
“When the government claims that insurgency was crushed in the State, then where is the logic to extend the operation of the act. The state government took the decision to increase its duration only to torture the tribals of the State because this act is operational in Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) only,” INPT general secretary Jagadish Debbarma said.
