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Indian woman vows to continue decade hunger strike
An extremely frail 38-year-old woman dubbed "The Iron Lady" marked 10 years without voluntarily taking food or water Thursday–a hunger strike launched to protest an anti-terror law that grants Indian soldiers sweeping powers to crack down on rebels.
Irom Sharmila had her last voluntary meal on Nov. 4, 2000, in Imphal, capital of Manipur, one of several northeastern states facing armed rebellions against Indian rule. She was arrested three days later and has been force-fed through her nose ever since.
Sharmila has been refusing to eat to demand the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which gives the military powers such as the right to arrest suspected militants without a warrant and to shoot anyone suspected of being a rebel.
The act became law across India in 1958 but was not specifically enforced in Manipur until the 1980s in order to quell a three-decade rebellion.
Bordering Myanmar, Manipur is one of northeastern India's hottest insurgency theaters, with some 17 active militant groups operating in the state of 2 million people. Some 10,000 people have been killed in insurgency-related violence in the past decade.