SRINAGAR: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram takes a dig at the BJP-led central government over the resignation of IAS officer Shah Faesal, saying that the world will take note of “his cry of anguish and defiance.”
In a series of tweets, the former Home and Finance Minister claimed that what Faesal, the first Kashmiri IAS topper, had said was an indictment of the Narendra Modi-led government. “Though sad, I salute Mr Shah Faesal IAS (now resigned). Every word of his statement is true and is an indictment of the BJP government. The world will take note of his cry of anguish and defiance,” he said.
Chidambaram said that not long ago, “legendary police officer” Julio Ribeiro, former DGP of Punjab and former Commissioner of Mumbai Police, had said the same thing, but there was “not a word of reassurance from the rulers.”
“Such statements from our fellow citizens must make us hang our heads in regret and shame,” he said. On the Modi government, Ribeiro had said the country needed inclusive development and not just for some sections.
He had also said he “felt threatened, not wanted, reduced to a stranger in his own country” and that he never felt that he belonged to a different religion. Faesal had resigned to ‘protest the unabated killings in Kashmir and absence of any credible political initiative from Union Government.’ He had added, “I have decided to resign from IAS. Kashmiri lives matter. I will be addressing a press-conference on Friday.”
Faesal’s longer statement, posted on Facebook, had read, “To protest against the unabated killings in Kashmir, and lack of any sincere reach-out from the Union Government; the marginalization and invisiblization 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.” (PTK)
