PUBLISHED
May 17, 2026
KARACHI:
In the hills of India’s northeast and across the valleys of Kashmir, generations have grown up under a law that grants soldiers the authority to arrest without warrant, search homes by force, and open fire on civilians under extraordinary circumstances. Entire communities have lived with checkpoints, patrols, raids, curfews, and the knowledge that military personnel operating in their towns are shielded by one of the most controversial legal protections in India.
For decades, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, better known as AFSPA, has occupied a volatile space in India’s social fabric and successive governments have defended it as a security necessity. Human rights groups have called it a license for abuse and families of the disappeared have described it as a system that is designed to prevent justice. Former officials, commissions of inquiry, and international organizations have repeatedly urged its repeal or overhaul. But much of that has fallen on deaf ears in New Delhi regardless of who is at the helm.
Now, a new communication from six United Nations special mandate holders has brought the debate back under the international spotlight. In an unusually detailed 11-page letter sent to the Narendra Modi government on March 31, the UN experts argue that AFSPA is incompatible with the country’s obligations under international human rights law. The document raises concerns about arbitrary killings, enforced disappearances, prolonged detention, restrictions on protest, and legal immunity for armed forces personnel accused of abuses.
The letter comes from an influential group of UN human rights experts, including the Special Rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, and other independent mandate holders focused on extrajudicial executions, peaceful assembly, and human rights defenders.
Collectively, the experts argue that the law has normalized extraordinary military powers in areas populated largely by indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, and politically alienated communities. They question whether a democratic state can indefinitely sustain emergency-style powers without hollowing out constitutional protections and eroding public trust in the rule of law.
The AFSPA mechanism
Enacted in 1958 during armed resistance movements in the Naga Hills and parts of Manipur, the AFSPA’s origins stretch further back to a British colonial ordinance introduced in 1942 to suppress anti-colonial resistance during the final years of empire. Independent India adapted the security regime after Partition and insurgencies in the northeast transformed security concerns into a defining challenge for the young republic.
Over the decades, the law spread beyond its original scope and was extended to Nagaland, Tripura, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and eventually Jammu and Kashmir in 1990 amid a growing rebellion against Indian occupation. Although its territorial footprint has shifted over time, AFSPA still remains active in several districts across the northeast and in Jammu and Kashmir.
The loopholes
The law’s central mechanism is the declaration of a “disturbed area.” Once an area receives that designation, armed forces personnel gain sweeping powers to conduct operations with limited civilian oversight. In their communication, the UN experts identify that designation process as one of the law’s deepest structural problems.
According to the experts, the phrase “disturbed area” remains dangerously vague. The law provides no precise legal threshold for declaring a region disturbed, nor does it impose meaningful time limits on how long the designation can remain in force. In practice, some communities have lived under AFSPA for more than six decades.
The communication notes that India’s Apex Court previously ruled that disturbed area declarations should be reviewed every six months. But the UN experts point to findings from commissions and inquiries showing that many of the safeguards envisioned by the court were either weakly implemented or ignored altogether. The result, they argue, is the emergence of what amounts to a semi-permanent militarized legal order operating inside a constitutional democracy.
Critics and supporters
The criticism goes beyond technical legal language and cuts into a larger debate that has shadowed India since independence — how far a democratic state can extend emergency powers before those powers begin to alter the character of the state itself. Supporters of AFSPA have consistently argued that the law is indispensable in regions facing insurgency, cross-border militancy, and armed separatist movements. Security officials maintain that soldiers operating in volatile environments cannot function effectively if they are exposed to constant litigation and procedural restrictions.
Critics respond that extraordinary powers may be justified for short periods during acute crises, but become dangerous when they evolve into permanent governance structures. The UN experts side firmly with the latter position.
Controversial section
One of the harshest sections of the communication focuses on AFSPA’s provisions governing the use of force. Section 4(a) allows military personnel to “fire upon or otherwise use force, even to the causing of death” under certain circumstances related to maintaining public order. The UN experts argue that the provision fails to meet international legal standards protecting the right to life.
Under international human rights law, lethal force may only be used when absolutely necessary to protect life from an imminent threat. The communication argues that AFSPA does not contain those safeguards. Instead, it allows force based largely on the military officer’s personal assessment that such action is necessary for maintaining public order. The experts caution that the threshold is broad, subjective, and easy to abuse.
The communication also criticizes the absence of explicit proportionality requirements. It argues that the law does not sufficiently require authorities to exhaust non-lethal alternatives before resorting to deadly force. Warnings, dispersal tactics, negotiation, restraint, and graduated responses are not embedded as mandatory safeguards.
The criticism reflects decades of allegations emerging from AFSPA-governed regions. Human rights organizations, local activists, journalists, and victims’ families have repeatedly accused security forces of staging fake encounters, carrying out extrajudicial killings, and using excessive force during protests and counterinsurgency operations. Several of those allegations have shaped public memory in Kashmir and the northeast.
In Manipur, the killing of Thangjam Manorama by Assam Rifles personnel in 2004 triggered one of the most dramatic protests against the security law. Twelve Manipuri women stripped naked before the Kangla Fort headquarters of the Assam Rifles holding a banner reading, “Indian Army Rape Us.” The protest became a lasting symbol of rage against militarization and impunity.
Around the same time, Irom Sharmila, also known as the Iron Lady of Manipur, began her hunger strike demanding the repeal of AFSPA after ten civilians were killed at a bus stop in Malom. Her fast continued for nearly 16 years, making her one of the world’s longest hunger strikers and transforming her into an international symbol of resistance against the law.
In Kashmir, allegations of custodial killings, disappearances, torture, and unmarked graves have long fueled distrust toward New Delhi’s security institutions. Human rights groups estimate that thousands of people disappeared during the peak years of the resistance movement and the Indian government’s operations. Throughout the document, the UN experts repeatedly return to the issue of accountability.
Impunity provision
Under Section 6 of AFSPA, armed forces personnel cannot be prosecuted for actions taken under the law without prior sanction from the central government. For critics of AFSPA, this provision represents the heart of the problem.
The UN experts argue that the sanction requirement creates structural impunity by placing prosecutions under political control. According to the communication, sanctions for prosecution are exceedingly rare.
The letter references findings by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which reported that during nearly three decades of AFSPA’s operation in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, not a single prosecution of armed forces personnel was approved by the central government.
Across India, families pursuing justice have long described a system where complaints disappear into bureaucratic silence as cases get delayed for years. Requests for prosecution are denied or remain unanswered indefinitely, and investigations move slowly, if at all.
Indian authorities have defended the immunity provision by arguing that soldiers operating in insurgency-hit regions require legal protection from frivolous accusations and politically motivated litigation. Officials have also argued that the military justice system is capable of handling allegations of wrongdoing internally.
Rejecting the argument, the communication states that military tribunals and internal disciplinary systems cannot substitute for civilian judicial oversight because they often lack transparency, independence, and public accountability. International human rights law, the experts argue, requires credible civilian investigations when security forces are accused of serious violations. The letter also points to the Indian Supreme Court’s own observations regarding military tribunals, which the court once described as “ad hoc bodies” vulnerable to command influence.
Detention and disappearance
Beyond the question of lethal force, the communication devotes extensive attention to detention powers under AFSPA. Section 4(c) allows armed forces personnel to arrest individuals without warrant based on “reasonable suspicion” that they have committed or are “about to commit” a cognizable offense.
The UN experts argue that the phrase “about to commit” creates a dangerously elastic standard that permits preventive detention based on broad suspicion rather than concrete evidence of imminent criminal conduct. International law permits preventive detention only under exceptional circumstances involving direct and immediate threats. In the document, they argue that AFSPA fails to meet those standards. The experts also caution about delays in the judicial process after arrest. Although India’s Top Court has interpreted constitutional protections as requiring detainees to be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours, AFSPA itself contains no detailed statutory safeguards regulating transfer times from military to police custody. That legal ambiguity, the communication warns, increases the risk of torture, secret detention, and enforced disappearance.
The issue of disappearances remains among the darkest chapters associated with conflict regions governed under the decades-old security law. In both Kashmir and the northeast, families have spent years searching for relatives allegedly taken into custody and never seen again. Civil society groups have documented cases involving unacknowledged detentions, missing persons, and unidentified graves.
The UN experts stress that even short periods of secret or undisclosed detention can amount to enforced disappearance under international law if authorities fail to disclose the detainee’s location or deny judicial access.
Addressing the broader atmosphere created by prolonged militarization, the communication recommends stronger detention safeguards, clear custody records, mandatory notification procedures, and stricter timelines for judicial review.
Curbing freedoms
The experts warn that AFSPA’s provisions risk undermining freedoms of expression, assembly, and association protected under international law. They argue that military deployment in civilian protest situations should remain exceptional and that any use of force against assemblies must comply with principles of necessity and proportionality.
That concern reflects the history of protest movements in AFSPA-governed regions. In Kashmir, demonstrations have frequently been met with curfews, mass detentions, internet shutdowns, pellet-firing shotguns, and heavy troop deployment. In the northeast, activists and student groups have repeatedly accused authorities of using security laws to suppress dissent.
The communication warns that counterterrorism measures should not be used to discourage civic engagement or silence criticism of the state. It also cautions against the “chilling effect” created when entire populations live under prolonged military authority. Fear of arrest, surveillance, or violent retaliation can narrow political space long before force is actually used.
Exposed communities
In the document, the UN experts place special emphasis on communities most affected by the controversial legal framework.The law operates predominantly in regions inhabited by Indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, and communities with histories of political exclusion and armed resistance. The communication notes that international human rights law requires equal protection without discrimination and calls attention to the rights of Indigenous communities under international legal standards.
The experts also raise concerns about children living under militarized conditions. They note that AFSPA contains no special safeguards governing the arrest, detention, or use of force involving minors. Under international law, detention of children must remain a measure of last resort and for the shortest possible duration. The communication argues that the law fails to reflect those protections adequately.
The debate
Although the UN communication is sharply critical, the debate over AFSPA inside India has never been simple. Indian action against resistance movements in the northeast and Kashmir have claimed thousands of lives over decades. Successive administrations in New Delhi, including Narendra Modi’s, describing their actions as confronting insurgency, have consistently argued that ordinary policing laws are insufficient in heavily militarized conflict zones. But AFSPA has generated growing discomfort within sections of India’s political and legal establishment.
In 2005, the Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee recommended repealing AFSPA, describing it as “a symbol of oppression.” The recommendation, like much of the criticism, fell on deaf ears and was never implemented. Over the years, several commissions, civil society groups, and legal experts have urged reforms ranging from stronger oversight mechanisms to complete repeal. Administrations in New Delhi, however, have largely resisted structural change. That resistance reflects the political sensitivity surrounding national security in India. Any attempt to dilute AFSPA is often framed by opponents as weakening the military or undermining counterinsurgency operations. At the same time, the existence of AFSPA continues to complicate India’s global image as a constitutional democracy committed to civil liberties and rule of law.
UN experts seek answers
The UN communication arrives during a period when India is seeking a larger international role, presenting itself as a democratic counterweight in an increasingly unstable geopolitical landscape. The letter places uncomfortable questions back into global discourse at a moment when democratic institutions in the country are receiving increased international scrutiny.
The communication ends with a detailed series of questions directed at the Indian government. The experts seek explanations regarding the criteria for declaring disturbed areas, safeguards against excessive force, detention practices, accountability mechanisms, protections for children and minorities, and the government’s plans regarding repeal or amendment of the law.
Whether the Indian government substantially engages with those questions remains uncertain. However, the writing on the wall suggests that AFSPA has become more than a security law. Over time, it has evolved into a symbol of the unresolved tensions between state power and constitutional restraint, between territorial control and democratic accountability.
The debate surrounding the law is ultimately about competing visions of the state itself. One vision argues that exceptional threats require exceptional authority and that security must precede liberty in conflict regions. The other cautions that emergency powers, once normalized, begin reshaping institutions, public life, and citizenship in ways that outlast the original conflict.
In many parts of the northeast and occupied Kashmir, that argument is no longer theoretical as entire generations have lived under military deployment – a permanent feature of their lives. Children have grown into adulthood passing through checkpoints, hearing stories of disappearances, and witnessing cycles of protest and repression that repeat across decades. The UN experts argue that such conditions cannot be treated as temporary anomalies indefinitely.
Independent observers who have examined similar situations suggest that laws introduced during moments of crisis can gradually become embedded into governance structures long after the emergency has ceased to feel temporary. Until the filing of this report, the Indian government had not responded to repeated requests for comment, nor had it publicly acknowledged the letter from the UN experts.
