New Delhi: Three years after Kashmiri IAS officer Shah Faesal quit the civil services to form his own political party, the Modi government has reinstated him as Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism.
The government issued the order earlier this week. according To ANI,
Faesal, who left the services in January 2019, started his own party – Jammu and Kashmir People’s Movement (JKPM) in March. just to get down As president of JKPM and quit politics completely in August 2020. He was brought back to the civil services in April, but his posting was pending.
While leaving the IAS, he had said that he was doing this to protest. Against “unabated killings” and “marginalization of Indian Muslims” in Kashmir. However, his recent posts are mostly about supporting the views of the central government.
The Print sought a comment from Faisal via call and direct message on twitter, but did not receive any response till the time of publication of this article. The article will be updated upon receipt of a response.
Read also: wooHigh CM Mamata Banerjee demands more IAS officers for West Bengal from Modi government
IAS topper, detained under PSA
In 2010Faisal, a doctor turned IAS officer, became the first Kashmiri to top the civil services exam. He started out as a 2010 batch J&K cadre officer, but after the abrogation of Article 370, Kashmir lost its statehood, and the cadre was merged with AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territories),
In February 2020, months before leaving politics, Faisal was detained under the Public Safety Act. Before being taken into custody, he wrote on Twitter: “The restoration of political rights to Kashmir will require a long, sustained, non-violent political mass movement. Abolition of Article 370 has ended the mainstream. The constitutionalists are gone. So now you can be either a puppet or a separatist. No shade of grey. The post has since been removed. He spent almost a year in custody.
A few days after leaving politics, Faisal said that he not hostile To work for the government. In April this year, his name was mentioned as an officer in the civilian list of officers of Jammu and Kashmir available on the website of the General Administration of the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, who are awaiting posting. Around the same time, Faisal, in a series of tweets, one of which was Told He was “excited to start again”. He later deleted the rest of the thread except for one tweet.
The party that Faisal founded did not stop working. JKPM contested the election of District Development Council in 2020 and Won a chair, It has a Facebook page with comments from its office bearers, but it no longer mentions Faesal.
change of tune
The tweet pinned on Faisal’s Twitter page reads: “The exodus of Kashmiri Pandits is the darkest spot in our history. The bone-shattering memories of those dreadful January nights are here to stay till the day justice is done.”
On 2 August, he changed his Twitter display photo to the Indian flag, and tweeted: “Changed the dp of my social media accounts to tricolor on PM @Narendra Modi Ji’s call to celebrate the nectar festival of freedom. I urge everyone to change the DP of their social media accounts to tricolor to show their love and respect for the national flag. #Harghar Tricolor,
Over the past two years, he has been tweeting about blasphemy violence in Pakistan, Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, raising funds for Hindu migrant workers killed by terrorists in Kashmir, following Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s tweets. Retweeted.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)