Aim is conciliation with all armed groups in northeast: Amit Shah

Centre, Assam and eight armed Adivasi groups of Assam sign tripartite memorandum of settlement

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Thursday that it was the government’s aim to resolve inter-boundary disputes in the northeast and strike a conciliation with all armed insurgent groups in the region before 2024.

Mr. Shah was speaking at the signing of a tripartite memorandum of settlement between the Government of India, the Assam government and eight armed Adivasi groups of Assam.

He said that in the past three years, many agreements had been signed with the armed groups and 93% pacts had been implemented on the ground.

At the signing of the settlement on Thursday, Mr. Shah said care had been taken to preserve the ethnic, cultural, and economic identity of the tribal groups.

He said the number of insurgency-related incidents in the northeast had decreased from 824 in 2014 to 158. The number of civilian killings in the region had declined from 212 in 2014 to six, and the number of security forces killed during the same period had reduced to two from 20 earlier. More than 10,000 cadres had surrendered and joined the mainstream after 2014 and more than 7,000 weapons had been surrendered. Mr. Shah said it was the aim of the government to make the northeast “terrorism-free.”

The Home Minister said that because of the improvement in the security situation, the disturbed areas under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) had been reduced from a large part of the northeast.

“About 60% of Assam is now free from the AFSPA. In Manipur, 15 police stations in six districts were taken out of the periphery of the disturbed area. In Arunachal Pradesh, the AFSPA remains in only three districts and two police stations in one district. In Nagaland, the disturbed area notification was removed from 15 police stations in seven districts and in Tripura and Meghalaya, the AFSPA was withdrawn completely,” the Minister said.