Manipur CM to honour Irom Sharmila for her 16-year-long hunger strike against AFSPA

April 2: Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh has said the state government will honour Irom Chanu Sharmila for her 16-year-long hunger strike against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Sharmila began her hunger strike two days after the Assam Rifles killed 10 people in Malom Makha Leikai in 2000.

Mere hours after the Centre withdrew the AFSPA from several parts of Nagaland, Assam and Manipur, the Manipur government decided to present “Iron Lady” Irom Chanu Sharmila an award for her hard struggle to end the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Sharmila, 49, who became the face of the anti-AFSPA movement in Manipur and elsewhere in the country, welcomed the Centre’s decision to remove AFSPA from several parts of Assam, Manipur and Nagaland.

Irom Chanu Sharmila is a human rights activist from Manipur who rose to prominence for her hunger strike from November 4 in 2000 to August 2016 to revoke the AFSPA. “We shall definitely invite her and honour her,” Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh said. “I also appreciate the people of Manipur, mainly Shrimati Sharmila who sacrificed half of her life staging dharna and hunger strike for 16 years, “ he added.

Sharmila, who unsuccessfully contested the 2017 Manipur assembly polls, said the repeal of AFSPA will also reduce the distance between people of the region and “mainland India”.