Need to amend AFSPA if it can’t be repealed, says Chidambaram

Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Monday said it is time to amend the Armed Forces Special (Powers) Act. (File Photo)

Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Monday said it is time to amend the Armed Forces Special (Powers) Act now in force in Jammu and Kashmir and other places. “There is a need to amend the AFSPA if you cannot repeal it. The law and order should be entrusted to the Jammu and Kashmir police and not on the paramilitary forces,” Chidambaram, former union minister, said at a programme in Kolkata.

The Act gives the security forces special rights and immunity in carrying out various operations in disturbed areas. There has been a long-standing demand from various quarters in J&K and the northeast to withdraw it. Chidambaram, also chairman of the panel on home affairs in the RS, said the presence of paramilitary forces in the northern state should be stepped down drastically and this would lower the graph of violence there.