New Delhi: The biggest issue in the Manipur assembly elections is a controversial security law which gives security forces sweeping power to arrest and keep people under detention.
All parties in Manipur have promised that they will get the Armed Forces Special Powers Act repealed if they are elected to power, says a PTI report from Imphal.
Resentment against the Act has increased after the condition of social activist Irom Sharmila Chanu, who has been on a hunger strike for six years, became worse.
Civil society groups say political parties are not serious about the Act and are only interested in exploiting public sentiment.
As past poll promises had hardly been fulfilled, the electorate and even civil society groups supporting the demand of Sharmila have taken the promises by political parties 'very lightly,' polical observers feel.
The act was imposed in Manipur after declaration of the state as 'disturbed area' in September 1980. The state has witnessed the death of over 1000 people, rape of several women and disappearance of several youths besides hundreds of cases of human rights violations involving security forces since the act came into force 25 years ago.
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