The Central government is likely to appoint the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) topper Shah Faesal as an Advisor to Lieutenant Governor of Union Territory Ladakh, reported a local news agency, Kashmir Indepth News Service (KINS).
Quoting top sources in New Delhi, the agency reported that talks are going to appoint Faesal as Advisor to Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh.
“Faesal does not want to serve in Kashmir for some time. He is facing resentment in Kashmir since he resigned from president of J&K Peoples Movement. He has told the authorities that he was ready to take the job but wants to serve outside Kashmir,” sources said. “The final decision will be taken soon. Few BJP leaders want him to serve in Kashmir as he was projected as role model after topping the 2009 IAS. But he is unwilling to serve in the valley. In the future he can return to bureaucracy and serve in Kashmir.”
So far, Faesal has remained tightlipped about his future course of action after being released in June last year. But his frequent trips to New Delhi over the past few months hints at his efforts to chalk out a strategy for his future endeavours.
Earlier, Faesal had resigned from the service in January 2019 to “protest against the unabated killings in Kashmir”. He launched a political front: J-K People’s Movement. He was also part of Gupkar Declaration of 4 August 2019, when political parties in Kashmir joined hands to defend special status of J-K, Article 370.
However, after he was released from the detention by New Delhi, in fallout of August 2019 episode when the state clamped on Kashmir and revoked the region’s limited-autonomy, he quit the politics too.
A day before his arrest in 2019, Faesal had tweeted that Kashmir would need a long, sustained, non-violent political mass movement for restoration of the political rights. “Abolition of Article 370 has finished the mainstream. Constitutionalists are gone. So you can either be a stooge or a separatist now. No shades of grey,” he had tweeted.
The Centre hasn’t yet accepted Faesal’s resignation from the IAS.
After six months of preventive detention, Faesal was slapped with the Public Safety Act in February last year for advancing the separatist ideology and challenging the decision of the central government to scrap the special status of J-K. (KINS)
