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| Army defends Special Powers Act | | |
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, June 14: Describing the legislation as a holy book for forces, army has refused to play ball with human rights activists amidst rising clamour to dilute, or altogether scarp the contentious Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
"I would like to say that the AFSPA provisions are very pious to me and I think to entire Indian army. We have religious books, there are certain guidelines which are given there, but all the members of the religion do not follow them; they break them also. Does it imply that you remove the religious book, or the chapter?" said northern army commander Lt Gen B S Jaswal. "My point is that if someone is found guilty, punish him, but don't touch this pious document or the AFSPA provisions," he added. Lt Gen Jaswal's strong defence of the Act is in keeping with the army's stand that it cannot operate without it in Jammu and Kashmir, or in the Northeast. In the past couple of months it has argued that without the Act, they would be unable to launch pro-active operations.
Human rights activists have, however, contended time and again that the Act gives excessive powers to soldiers. Chief minister Omar Abdullah has said in recent past that there is a need to revoke the Act since it is prone to abuse. But army says majority of human rights abuse cases are found to be false and those found true have been severely dealt with.1,473 of 1,511 cases since 1990 were found false, and 104 armymen had been punished in 35 cases so far.
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