J&K IAS officer resigns to protest 'unabated killings'

Shah Faesal, 2010 IAS topper from Jammu and Kashmir, on Wednesday resigned to protest against the “unabated killings and lack of political outreach from New Delhi.”

“To protest the unabated killings in Kashmir and absence of any credible political initiative from Union Government, I have decided to resign from IAS. Kashmiri lives matter (sic),” he tweeted.

“The marginalization and invisibilization of around 200 million Indian Muslims at the hands of Hindutva forces reducing them to second-class citizens; insidious attacks on the special identity of the J&K State and growing culture of intolerance and hate in the mainland India in the name of hyper-nationalism, I have decided to resign from Indian Administrative Service,” he added.

Faesal said he wished to remind the regime of the day that subversion of public institutions like RBI, CBI and NIA has the potential to decimate the Constitutional edifice of this Country and it needs to be stopped.

“I wish to reiterate that voices of reason in this country cannot be muzzled for long and the environment of siege will need to end if we wish to usher in true democracy,” he said his Facebook post.

Thanking his family, friends and other well-wishers for supporting him in his IAs journey, he said one of “my important tasks here-after will be train and guide aspiring civil servants to help them in achieving this dream.”

Faesal, however, did not disclose his future plans by saying, “I will be addressing a press conference on Friday to share my future plans. I will look forward to your support and blessings in this new mission.”

NC chief Omar Abdullah while tweeting about the development wrote, “The bureaucracy’s loss is politics’ gain. Welcome to the fold @shahfaesal.” “Actually I welcomed him to the fold of politicians. His future political plans are his to announce,” he said in another tweet, while responding to reports that Faesal was likely to join National Conference.

Faesal recently returned to the country from a stint as a Fulbright fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. He cleared the civil services exam in 2010, becoming the first Kashmiri to top the test.

Last year, an inquiry was launched against him for a remark on rampant rapes in South Asia. Criticising the rape culture in the region, Faesal had referred to South Asia as “Rapistan”
He is also the first bureaucrat to join the debate on Article 35A, comparing the petition to challenge it to a “nikahnama”