Shah Faesal: India detains Kashmir politician at airport – BBC News
Shah Faesal was arrested at the international airport in Delhi
A well known bureaucrat-turned-politician from Indian-administered Kashmir has been arrested in Delhi and sent back to the region, reports say.
Shah Faesal was one of the few Kashmiri politicians who was not detained ahead of India’s controversial decision to revoke the region’s special status.
He was arrested at the Delhi airport.
Speaking to BBC Hardtalk in Delhi on Tuesday, Mr Faesal said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had “murdered the constitution in broad daylight”.
The PTI news agency quoted officials as saying that he had been arrested from the international airport in Delhi as he was trying to board a flight to Turkey.
There is no clarity on where he has been taken but some local media have said he has been placed under house arrest. The BBC has not been able to independently verify this.
Mr Faesal made headlines when he topped India’s notoriously difficult civil services examination in 2009, becoming the first Kashmiri to do so.
He resigned from his post in January to launch his own political party – the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Movement.
Hundreds of people have already been detained in the region after the government revoked Article 370 – as the constitutional provision guaranteeing special status is known – on 5 August.
They include politicians, activists, academics and business leaders.
The region has been in lockdown for more than a week now, with mobile, landline and internet networks cut off and curfew-like restrictions that ban people from assembling in crowds. However, officials said on Wednesday that these restrictions have been eased in the Hindu-majority Jammu region.
But there have been protests, including one on Friday in Srinagar in the Muslim-majority valley. It involved thousands of people coming out after midday prayers to demonstrate against the move.
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