Assam government on September 1, 2017 extended the term of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) and declared the state as a Disturbed Area for six more months.
This is the first time the state government has extended the AFSPA and Disturbed Area provision on its own under Section 3 of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958. In the past, AFSPA in the state was always extended by the Centre.
Assam has remained a “disturbed area” under provisions of the AFSPA for nearly 27 years, with the Centre invoking the AFSPA on November 27, 1990, following incidents of violence by the ULFA activists.
Presently AFSPA is enforced in the 6 states of North East (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland) and Jammu and Kashmir.