Kashmiri IAS topper resigns from service to protest ''unabated killings''

Ishfaq Tantry
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, January 9

To protest against the 'unabated killings in Kashmir and lack of any sincere reach-out' from the Union government, Shah Faesal, first Kashmiri to top IAS exam in 2009, on Wednesday said he has decided to resign from the service.

Though speculation is rife that he may join National Conference  to contest the forthcoming Parliamentary elections from the North Kashmir or float his own political party, Faesal said he will be addressing a press conference on Friday to "share his future plans" with the media.

Faesal had returned recently to Kashmir from a stint as a Fulbright fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and was at tourist resort Gulmarg when he  he made his decision to resign public.

He, however, made it clear that even after resigning from the coveted Indian Administrative Services (IAS) one of his "important tasks will be to train and guide aspiring civil servants to help them in achieving their dream".

Faesal, an MBBS doctors and originally hailing from Kupwara district in north Kashmir, achieved fame after he cleared the Civil Services Exam in 2009, becoming the first Kashmiri to top the test.

Taking to the social media to announce his decision, Faesal wrote: "To protest against the unabated killings in Kashmir, and lack of any sincere reach-out from the Union Government; the marginalisation and invisiblisation 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 hypernationalism, I have decided to resign from Indian Administrative Service."

"I wish 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," he said, adding, "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."

After joining the IAS and getting the J&K cadre, Faesal served in different capacities in the administration before being appointed director of school education in the Kashmir Valley, when PDP's Naeem Akhter was the education minister. 

In 2018, an inquiry was ordered against him for his social media remark on rampant rapes in south Asia, wherein he had referred the region as "rapistan".