Shah Faesal, 2009 IAS topper, who hails from Kupwara in north Kashmir has resigned from the service to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
According to sources, Faesal will be joining the National Conference.
The former IAS topper wrote on Twitter that he was resigning in protest against the unabated killings in Kashmir and the absence of any credible political initiative from the Union government “I have decided to resign from IAS. Kashmiri lives matter,” he tweeted.
On his Facebook page he wrote: “To protest against the unabated killings in Kashmir, and lack of any sincere reach-out from the Union government; 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 the growing culture of intolerance and hate in the mainland India in the name of hypernationalism, I have decided to resign from Indian Administrative Service.”
He said he wished to remind the regime of the day that subversion of public institutions like the 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 a true democracy,” he wrote.
He thanked his family, friends, and well-wishers for supporting him in his IAS journey. “My important tasks hereafter will be to train and guide aspiring civil servants to help them in achieving this dream,” he added.
He said he will be addressing a press conference on Friday to share his future plans.
The flamboyant former bureaucrat recently returned from the United States where he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Faesal topped the IAS examination nine years back, the first ever by a resident of Jammu and Kashmir. He achievement was hailed as a turning point for the youth in Kashmir after decades of militancy and bloodshed.
His achievement had spurred the craze among the youth to join the civil services.
The 35-year-old often spoke his mind on important administrative and social issues, which at times landed him in trouble.
The government last year ordered an inquiry against him for calling the South Asian region “rapistan”. He had made the comment against the backdrop of repeated news of rapes emerging from the region.
National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah welcomed the resignation of Faesal by calling it a “loss to bureaucracy and gain to politics”.
“The bureaucracy’s loss is politics’ gain. Welcome to the fold @shahfaesal,” Omar wrote on Twitter as reports on Faesal’s resignation started doing the rounds.
“Actually I welcomed him to the fold of politicians. His future political plans are his to announce,” Omar said in another tweet while responding to reports that Faesal was likely to join National Conference.