The Jammu and Kashmir government has initiated disciplinary action against 2010-batch IAS exam topper Faesal for his tweet about frequent rapes which was seen by the Centre's Department of Personnel and Training as his failure to maintain absolute honesty and integrity in discharge of duties.

The Central government has ordered action against 35-year-old Jammu and Kashmir bureacrat Shah Faesal for his tweets. The Jammu and Kashmir government initiated disciplinary action against 2010-batch IAS exam topper Faesal for his tweet about frequent rapes which was seen by the Centre's Department of Personnel and Training as his failure to maintain absolute honesty and integrity in discharge of duties.

In a notice to Faesal, the General Administration Department said, "You have allegedly failed to maintain absolute honesty and integrity in the discharge of official duty and thus acted in a manner unbecoming of a public servant. "

The GAD initiated the disciplinary proceedings at the request of the Centre's Department of Personnel and Training, sources said. Faesal had posted a tweet saying, "Population +patriarchy +illiteracy +alcohol +porn +technology +anarchy = rapistan".

Patriarchy+Population+Illiteracy+Alcohol+Porn+Technology+Anarchy = Rapistan! — Shah Faesal (@shahfaesal) April 22, 2018

This post drew the ire of the DoPT. Faesal, who is currently abroad pursuing the Edward S Mason Mid Career Masters Programme, gave a sarcastic response on Twitter and called it a 'Love letter'. Former Managing Director of Jammu and Kashmir State Power Development Corporation, Shah had topped the civil services exam and is the only Kashmiri to have done so.

Love letter from my boss for my sarcastic tweet against rape-culture in South Asia.

The Irony here is that service rules with a colonial spirit are invoked in a democratic India to stifle the freedom of conscience.

I'm sharing this to underscore the need for a rule change. pic.twitter.com/ssT8HIKhIK — Shah Faesal (@shahfaesal) July 10, 2018

"I'm sharing this to underscore the need for a rule change," Faesal wrote on his Twitter handle while posting the copy of the notice with it. Faesal's tweet on 'Rapistan' came in the wake of the brutal Kathua gangrape which stirred a huge political row in Jammu and Kashmir.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah commenting on the issue said the DoPT seemed to be determined to chase Faesal out of civil service.

Looks like DOPT is determined to chase @shahfaesal out of the civil services. The last line of this page is shocking & unacceptable where they question Faesal’s “integrity & honesty”. How is a sarcastic tweet dishonest? How does it make him corrupt? https://t.co/6MdUBvC71p — Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) July 10, 2018

Faesal, however, is not the first bureacrat to face disciplinary action by the Centre. After its 2016 rule that bans officials from criticising the government on social media, a senior Madhya Pradesh bureacrat Ajay Singh Gangwar was asked to explain his "purported" Facebook post calling for a people’s revolution (jan kranti) against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Gangwar, who was Barwani collector, was transferred to the secretariat in Bhopal by the BJP's Madhya Pradesh government. "The state government has transferred Barwani Collector Gangwar as Deputy Secretary in the Mantralaya in Bhopal," a state Public Relation department official had said. In the Facebook post written in Hindi, Gangwar wrote: "Let me know the mistakes that Nehru should not have committed... Is it his mistake that he prevented all of us from becoming Hindu Talibani Rashtra in 1947? Is it his mistake to open IIT, ISRO, BARC, IISB, IIM, BHEL steel plant, dams, thermal power? Is it his mistake that he honoured Sarabhai, Homi Jehangir in place of intellectuals like Asaram and Ramdev?"