The full form of AFSPA is Armed forces special power act.  It all started in Nagaland,  when after independence the Nagas wanted their own country called greater Nagalim. Jawaharlal Nehru gave an alternative option of having their own state in India, but the Nagas rejected this offer. This  dissimilarity between the government of India and people of Nagaland caused unrest so Nehru sent in the army and invoked AFSPA in the year 1958 to control the Naga uprising. In Manipur linguistic conflicts and reservations became the reason that aggravated the meiti,nagas and kuki Tribes.  As a result more and more insurgent groups became active. To make things complicated all the groups have completely different demands ranging from reservation to creation of new states to complete independence from india. Under the “ AFSPA” act the areas of the North East that have problems of insurgency are declared as “ disturbed area” . In order to maintain peace and order in these areas government takes the help of the armed forces.

AFSPA entrusts the army with some special powers which can be abused. The armed forces have power to open fire on suspicion, arrest a suspicion without warrants, enter and search any property,  if they doubt that an area is hideout or training camp they can destroy it . And the most supreme power is that AFSPA gives a special protection to security forces. As per official figures, in the past 21 years more than 4300 civilians were mistaken as a insurgent and have died in the North Eastern states of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh.

Recently last year on 4th December fourteen (14) civilians lost their lives in Nagaland. Indian army and paramilitary forces mistook them as a insurgents but actually they were ordinary labourers. As per the reports Assam rifles had credible sources for an ambush. According to the credible source these insurgents were planning to attack the army so as a response the Assam rifles planned to stop them by firing bullets, the bullets were fired on a civilian vehicle and seven people lost their lives. Post this incident the tribals in Nagaland started protesting demanding to repeal “ AFSPA” . During the protest two army vehicles were burnt, an army jawan and six locals lost their lives .

This incident pressurized the government to take action so the government of India decided to reduce AFSPA from parts of Nagaland, Assam and Manipur.