Centre, state government expected to agree on extending AFSPA belt in Arunachal Pradesh

NEW DELHI: To end what has become a bitter fight between the Congress-ruled Arunachal Pradesh and the Centre, both sides are expected to agree on the imposition of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in a belt extending only up to 30 kilometers inside the nine districts of the state which border Assam.

Since the 1990s, three districts of Assam, Tirap, Changlang and Longding have been entirely covered by AFSPA while nine other districts have a 20-kilometer corridor covered under AFSPA which borders Assam. In a notification issued on March 27, the Home Ministry extended AFSPA to these nine districts in their entirety. This prompted angry protests by the state Chief Minister, Nabam Tuki, who said AFSPA was being extended to his “peaceful state without any consultations.” The Union Home Ministry is now willing to raise the AFSPA belt in these nine districts from 20 to 30 kilometers only.

“The Arunachal Government in 2008 had proposed the AFSPA belt can be extended to 30 kilometers in these nine bordering districts. It was then a Congress government as well headed by the late Dorjee Khandu. We now plan to rely on the 2008 proposal for a 30-km AFSPA belt rather than AFSPA covering entire nine districts…extending it beyond 30 kms would cover Itanagar which the state does not want,” a senior home ministry official told ET.