On the 6th of November 200, three days after she launched her strike, Sharmila was arrested by police personnel on charges of ‘attempt to commit suicide’ which is unlawful under section 306 of the Indian Penal Code and was later transferred to judicial custody. Not budging from her stance on not eating or drinking anything till the Act was repealed, the police had to forcibly use nasogastric intubation in order to keep her alive while she was in their custody. Since section 309 of the Indian Penal Code states that a person who ‘attempts to commit suicide’ is punishable “with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year (or with a fine, or with both), Irom Sharmila has been ritually released and rearrested every year since she started her fast unto death campaign against what she terms as a ‘draconian law’.

Cause

On the 1st of November 2000, in Malom, a town in the Imphal Valley of Manipur, ten people were allegedly gunned down at a bus station. The crime was allegedly perpetrated by personnel of the Assam Rifles, one of the Indian Paramilitary forces operating in the state. The mowing down of the civilians was a direct result of an attempt by insurgents to bomb a paramilitary convoy and the Assam Rifles later claimed that the civilians had died in the ensuing cross – fire. Eyewitnesses however contradicted this explanation by the Assam Rifles. Among those who died in the ‘cross – fire’ were a 62 year old woman named Leisangbam Ibetomi and an 18 year old girl Sinam Chandramani, the latter was a 1988 National Child Bravery Award winner.

Seeing the lack of response to the fiasco from the part of the government prompted Irom Sharmila, then 28 years old, to act. On the 4th of November 2000, she launched her hunger strike against the implementation of the AFSPA in her home state and later extended the scope of her demand to all regions of India’s North East Region where the Act has been imposed.

Effect

In 2004, in the wake of intense agitation, the Government of India set up a five – member committee under the Chairmanship of Justice Jeevan Reddy a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. This panel was given the mandate of ‘reviewing the provisions of the AFSPA and advising the Government of India whether (a) to amend the provisions of the Act to bring them in consonance with the obligations of the government towards protection of human rights; or (b) to replace the Act by a more humane Act.’ The Reddy Commission as it came to be known submitted its recommendations to the Government of India on the 6th of June 2005 but sadly, the government failed to take any concrete action on these recommendations.