Sharmila said that she wants to become Chief Minister of Manipur so that the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) can be removed from the state.
Advertisement
There has been an insurgency in Manipur, a state in India’s northeast, for the last five decades, with a number of militant groups demanding independence.
Although she was given security guards considering the threat perception to her life due to her decision to end fast, Sharmila said that she does not need any security.
Sharmila, known as the Iron Lady of Manipur, ended the protest by licking drops of honey in front of a crowd of reporters in her hometown Impal, the capital of the remote northeastern Manipur state.
All these years, authorities force-fed her to keep her alive during what would be the world’s longest fast. She has repeatedly been charged with attempting suicide, but never convicted.
Under the forum of Sharmila Kunba Lup, a large number of her supporters and women activists will be meeting her as Irom starts her new journey from today.
She says she plans to run in state elections in 2017 to have the legislation struck down.
Earlier Tuesday, a judge had granted her bail after she assured him that she planned to end her fast.
“I am not a goddess, I want to be a human being”.
She said she will use everything in her power to create a positive society and the “foremost will be removal of this draconian (AFSPA) law”.
A campaigner in India who has been on a hunger strike for 16 years has ended her fast. Sharmila had declined food or drink for the last 16 years, seeking repeal of the controversial AFSPA.
Sharmila started the hunger strike in November 2000 after the Malom massacre in a small village on the outskirts of Imphal, in which 10 people were reportedly killed by a government-controlled paramilitary force, the Assam Rifles.
Ms Sharmila has signed a personal bail bond and is expected to be released from her judicial custody in a local hospital after bail procedures are complete.
Quoted by Zee News, she said: “I have been fasting for 16 years and not got anything from it”.
Advertisement
Through years of arrests and rearrests on charges of attempt to commit suicide, Irom drew the global media to her state’s plight and the Malom Massacre that sealed her fate in 2000.
