Shah Faesal Arrested in Delhi, Sent to Srinagar

Shah Faesal will be put under house arrest in Kashmir after being detained today at the Indira Gandhi International Airport. 

According to the HuffPost India, Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer turned politician, Shah Faesal, was boarding a flight to Boston at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi today when he was stopped, detained, and then sent to Srinagar. 

The Delhi Police and the Jammu and Kashmir police have been contacted for confirmation by HuffPost India but no update has been received yet. 

Faesal is the most recent public figure from Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) to be detained by security services since the lockdown has been imposed in the region by the Indian government starting on August 5, 2019. The state has since then been bifurcated, had its constitutionally-guaranteed ‘special status’ revoked by Parliament, and its mainstream politicians like former Chief Ministers Omar Abdullah of the National Conference, and Mehbooba Mufti of the People’s Democratic Party have been arrested.

In 2009, Faesal became the first Kashmiri to have topped the civil service examination. He has criticised the Modi government’s abrogation of J&K’s special status and its subsequent lockdown.   

Faesal said in an interview with HuffPost India, “Nobody had the slightest idea that the Indian Constitution would be robbed of its value in broad daylight.”

“More hurtful is the manner in which it was done. It was done with such unilateralism  and ruthlessness, without taking into consideration Kashmiris. There cannot be a darker day for democracy,” he said. 

He said in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday that the only choices left for Kashmiris were  “stooge or separatist.” 

“I’m not going to be a stooge. I think one clarity which this step has brought unto all of us is that those people who believed that India would not betray this generation of Kashmiris….You know this new insult, this new phase of indignation that has begun on 5 August, 2019, and it is my generation which has got the taste of betrayal,” he said. 

Original Source: HuffPost India