New York: Indian writer Arundhati Roy has
said revoking the armed forces act from Jammu and Kashmir and
demilitarisation is required to ensure the right of
self-determination to the people of the state and a country
cannot call itself a democracy if people are forced to live
under military rule.
"I want to say unambiguously that I do not think any
country that calls itself a democracy has the right to force
people to remain in it in a militaristic way, the way that
India is doing in order to prove that it`s a secular country,"
Roy said at a panel discussion on Kashmir at the Asia Society
here.
"I think that the people of Kashmir have the right to
self-determination, they have the right to choose who they
want to be and how they want to be. The first step would be to
demilitarise, to withdraw this absolutely unbelievable law the
Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)," Roy said.
PTI
