Army Chief against AFSPA dilution: PC

The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is not being diluted or withdrawn from certain parts of J&K and some northeastern states because the armed forces are strongly opposed to such a move, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Wednesday.

"There is no consensus on it. The Chief of Army staff, the present one and the previous one, have taken a very strong stand that AFSPA should not be amended or rescinded, even from areas where the Army is not deployed," he said, after delivering the K Subrahmanyam Memorial Lecture here. "My own views and the views of the J&K chief minister are well known. Yet if the Army takes a strong view opposing any dilution, it becomes very difficult for a civilian government to move forward," he said.

"It should be asked of the armed forces as to why they are so opposed to any amendments that will only make the AFSPA a more humanitarian law," he said.

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