• The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has reimposed the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Manipur’s six police station areas, including the violence-hit Jiribam.

• The ministry asserted that the decision was taken given the continuous volatile situation there due to the ongoing ethnic violence.

• The central government notification on the reimposition of AFSPA came the same day the Manipur police announced the seizure of a cache of arms and ammunition from Manipur’s Jiribam and Churachandpur districts.

• An area or district is notified as “disturbed” under AFSPA to facilitate operations by the armed forces. AFSPA gives armed forces operating in disturbed areas sweeping powers to search, arrest and open fire if they deem it necessary for the “maintenance of public order”.

• The police station areas where AFSPA has been reimposed are Sekmai and Lamsang in Imphal West district, Lamlai in Imphal East district, Jiribam in Jiribam district, Leimakhong in Kangpokpi and Moirang in Bishnupur.

• There are 16 districts in Manipur.

• More than 200 people have been killed and thousands rendered homeless in ethnic violence between Imphal Valley-based Meiteis and adjoining hills-based Kuki-Zo groups since May 2023.

What is AFSPA?

• Law and order is a State Subject. However, the central government is supplementing efforts of the state governments for curbing the illegal and unlawful activities of militant/insurgent groups of Northeast states through various measures. 

• These include deployment of Central Armed Police Forces, reimbursement of security related expenditure (SRE) to the state governments under SRE scheme, central assistance to the state governments for modernisation of state police forces, sanction of India Reserve Battalions, banning the Unlawful Associations operating in NE region under UAPA, declaring specific areas/states as “disturbed areas” for the purpose of AFSPA and issuing notifications for Unified Command Structure.

• The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act was enacted in 1958 to enable certain special powers to be conferred upon the members of the Armed Forces in the “disturbed areas” in Assam and Manipur. It was amended and extended to Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura.

• If the governor of a state or the administrator of the Union Territory to which this Act extends or the central government is of the opinion that the whole or any part of such state of Union Territory is in such a disturbed or dangerous condition that the use of Armed Forces in aid of the civil power is necessary, the governor of state or the administrator of Union Territory or the central government may declare the whole or such part of such state or Union Territory to be a “disturbed area”.

• The AFSPA gives the Armed Forces sweeping powers to search and arrest, and to open fire if they deem it necessary for “the maintenance of public order”.

• AFSPA is imposed in areas where Armed Forces are required to operate in aid of civil authorities. 

• For AFSPA to become valid, an area, however, needs to be declared “disturbed” either by the central or the state government under Section 3 of the 1958 Act.

• The “disturbed area” notification under AFSPA was completely removed from Tripura in 2015 and Meghalaya in 2018.

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