File photo: Irom Sharmila
Activist Irom Sharmila is not trying to commit suicide by her indefinite fast against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act or AFSPA, a court in Manipur's Imphal ruled today.
The activist has been on a 14-year-long hunger strike to demand the removal of AFSPA in Manipur, but has said that it is not a fast unto death.
The Imphal court today refused to accept the Manipur Police's chargesheet over the 2014 case, charging her for attempted suicide.
On August 19 last year, a court in Imphal had dismissed similar charges filed against the activist in 2000, and ordered that she should be released from custody. The court had also observed that the Manipur government and the police had "failed miserably" to demonstrate that Irom Sharmila had intended to commit suicide through fasting.
Just three days after her release, the Manipur Police had re-arrested Irom Sharmila and charged her with another case of attempted suicide. She was also charged under Section 353 of the Indian penal Code, for allegedly stopping a public servant from performing his duty.
An anguished Sharmila told the judge today, "I am tired of this cycle of release and re-arrest. Please put my case to trial once and for all. Let the case be decided".
The court has dismissed both the charges against her.
Babloo Loitongbam, an activist from Imphal and part of the Save Sharmila campaign, says, "She has been released by the court. All of us value her liberty and we hope she will not be criminalised further."
Neither the Manipur government nor the police have reacted on the court's verdict yet.
Manipur Director General of Police Shahid Ahmad told NDTV over the phone that he would only be able to speak later this evening.
The latest court order in her favour means that Irom Sharmila will be released from judicial custody; she has been confined to a room at a government hospital in Imphal.