Lt Gen Hooda Bats for Amendment of AFSPA, Says Act Needs to be More Humane

New Delhi: Batting for the amendment of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), Lt-General DS Hooda (retd) said the act needs to be made more humane and needs to be reviewed to provide protection to soldiers in counter-insurgency operations.

"There are, in fact, shortfalls in the AFSPA in protecting our soldiers, especially after the Supreme Court judgment of July 2016 (which basically held military personnel could not escape investigation for excesses during discharge of duty even in disturbed areas). A review is needed, not dilution or removal," Lt-Gen Hooda was quoted as saying by the Times of India. Under Lt-Gen Hooda’s command in September 2016, the Indian army had carried out ‘surgical strikes’ on terror launch-pads in Pakistan.

"Suitable changes will be made in the text of the law (AFSPA) to balance the requirements of security and the protection of human rights," the Congress had mentioned in its manifesto.

Lt Gen Hooda had submitted a report on national security to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, over a month after he was tasked by the party to come out with a vision document.

The former northern Army commander was made the head of a 'task force on national security', set up by Rahul Gandhi in February to prepare the vision paper for the country.

The debate over AFSPA was triggered last week after the Congress in its manifesto assured to review the AFSPA and the deployment of security forces in Jammu and Kashmir. The BJP lashed out at the Congress and termed it ‘manifesto of lies’, with Arun Jaitley saying that the manifesto was ‘unimplementable and dangerous’.

The former northern Army commander said that the document he prepared for the Congress had no mention of AFSPA of deployment of security forces in J&K as these are ‘tactical issues’. He said that the document was a long-term vision paper on India’s national security.

"I have made a broad recommendation that our political objectives in J&K must first be clear, and then the military can draw its strategy from them. We need a combined politico-military strategy. It's wrong to equate a political manifesto with a NSS," he added.