Srinagar: Former IAS officer and Chairman Jammu and Kashmir People’s Movement (JKPM) Shah Faesal who wishes to become Nelson Mandela for Kashmiri people is reading Tafseer of Quran, books on law, history and Urdu literature and offering five times prayer during his detention.
36-year-old 2010 batch IAS officer and UPSC topper Shah Faesal was detained on August 14, 2019 in New Delhi and was kept in detention in Srinagar. He was booked under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) on February 14 – the day his six-month preventive detention ended. He is currently being kept at the MLA hostel in Srinagar’s central Lal Chowk.
According to family sources, Shah Faesal has no regrets on joining politics. He considers his detention as a test from Allah.
Faesal’s family says PSA charges on him came as a surprise as not long ago, he was seen as a “model citizen” for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. The Wire quoted his family as saying “Faesal is not a gunda (hooligan). He is a scholar who has graduated from Harvard. Anybody can vouch for him. He doesn’t deserve this.”
Faesal is the eight prominent mainstream politician who was slapped with PSA charges. Former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti were also booked under the PSA after their preventive detention period came to an end.
Faesal has a five-year-old son who badly missing his father. He is told that his Papa is in school to complete a project. So he has also packed his bag to go to the same school in which his father is working.
HIs family revealed that after reading the Quran, Faesal is currently reading books on political science and the holocaust, and Tolstoy’s books.