Tripura Government has decided to withdraw the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA) from the remaining areas of the state. Chief Minister Manik Sarkar told media persons after a cabinet meeting in Agartala yesterday that the police in its latest half-yearly review found no need to extend the act any further.
Accordingly, the state will move the Union Home Ministry for formal withdrawal of the central Act.
With the decision, the number of police stations under the Act was reduced from 34 to 25. Side by side, the number of police stations under partial imposition of the Act was increased from six to seven.
The Opposition Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) has been demanding repeal of the Act entirely from the state alleging that it had become a tool of harassment to the people living in remote areas of the State.
The Centre had enforced the Act in February, 1997 in 40 police station areas of the state, dominated by the tribal. With the insurgency on the wane in Tripura, the administration, in June 2013 had withdrawn the Act from nine police stations.