Anti-terror laws play a key role in India’s war against insurgency in its northeast. These laws are designed to provide dominance to the security forces to deal with the violence perpetrated by the insurgents. Such legalized dominance in terms of opening fire, conducting search operations and arresting persons suspected to be insurgents or harbouring such forces of terror, even though extremely autocratic, are universal in nature and are employed regularly to deal with special situations like the one prevailing in the northeast.  It is a pity that such enforcement has been confronted with voices sceptical of the men in uniform and their sense of responsibility.

Anti-terror laws in general, be it the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1958) and the Disturbed Areas Act, continue to invite substantial criticism from the civil society led mostly by the human rights organizations in the region. These organizations argue that enforcement of security through special laws has widened the sphere of human rights abuse. According to these groups, security forces have been guilty of numerous atrocities under the protection of such draconian legislations. Publications and websites of these groups document numerous cases of alleged human rights abuses by the security forces including illegal detention, torture, rape and secret killings. The repeal of such special laws is a common demand, the acceptance of which is hoped to correct the tactical imbalance, which is currently perceived to be in favour of the State. It is also a fact that the opposition to such acts gradually is finding favour among the intelligentsia in the societies including the journalists. In 2002, introduction of POTO was criticized by a large section of the journalists in all the Northeastern States.

The fact remains that on various occasions the security forces have been found guilty of indulging in atrocities amounting to glaring cases of human rights violations. On 6 February 1997, the Supreme Court decided to grant compensation to a family in Manipur some of whose members had been killed by army officers. Only recently, the Manipur Human Rights Commission (MHRC) decided not to abide by the High Court order in relation to the killing of two youth in Imphal city by the State police on December 2002. These two youths were identified as National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) cadres, which the MHRC refused to believe. In Assam, similar cases of human rights violations during various army operations have been documented by organizations like the Manab Adhikar Sangram Samiti (MASS).

However, the organizations demanding the repeal of the ‘draconian legislations’ often tend to act in tandem with the insurgent outfits. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has notified a number of such organizations including the MASS and the Naga People’s Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR) as maintaining links with the insurgents. Such collusion inherently results in these organizations promoting the cause of the insurgents. Repeal of such laws would only act as a force multiplier for the insurgents. It is also difficult to imagine that the absence of these laws would deter the so-called atrocities by the security forces.

The Arunachal Pradesh government, towards the later part of 2002 brought in a legislation – the Arunachal Pradesh Control of Organized Crimes Act (APCOCA) – with the purpose of dealing with the growing incidents of insurgency by the NSCN-IM in the districts of Tirap and Changlang. This enactment was opposed by the All Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union (AAPSU) and the NEFA Indigenous Human Rights Organization (NIHRO) on the grounds that it would violate the right of innocent civilians. Later an arrest of an NSCN-IM cadre from Itanagar revealed a nexus between the students’ organization and the Naga insurgent outfit. This illustrates the collusion between the legal and the proscribed segments of the society and represents the actual intent behind the demand for repeal of the anti-terror laws.

It is axiomatic that when a nation’s survival is at stake, civil liberties will have to take a back seat; following the 9/11 episode, the United States did suspend the constitutional safeguards of not only ‘enemy combatants’ but also suspects. However, it is also expected that the government would introduce a great deal of transparency into the mechanism through which these special laws operate. Things must never be allowed to come to a passé where the authorities lose track of the use and misuse of these acts. Recently the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) admitted that it has no record and no figures of the arrests under POTA as implementation of the law is the responsibility of the States and the Union Territories. Such a trend only emboldens the critics and makes the genuine intent of the government look like despotic measures. The resolution to root out terrorism must be mixed with a sense of responsibility towards innocent civilians.