NEW DELHI – An officer of the prestigious Indian Administrative Servicefrom Kerala, resigned from his position in order to freely speak about theoppression of people in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK).

Kannan Gopinathan tendered the resignation on Wednesday and fired abroadside at the ruling regime for having imposed a communication blackoutin occupied Kashmir region.

“It has been 20 days since there has been a lockdown on a whole region withall kinds of restrictions. I cannot remain silent over this even if thismeans I have to resign from the IAS in order to speak freely and that iswhat I have done,” he said.

The bureaucrat stated that the constitution allows for the imposition of astate of emergency if there is aggression within the region, but lamentedthat in Kashmir, it has been imposed as a preemptive measure.

People’s freedom has been curtailed on the grounds that if it is not, itwill lead to an internal disturbance, he elaborated.

Gopinathan said that according to an amendment in the Indian Constitutionthis reason was no longer valid for imposing the emergency.

“This is not Yemen, this is not the 1970s, that you can deny basic rightsto an entire people and nobody will say anything about it,” Gopinathan said.

The officer shared that civil servants are expected to implementinstructions without analysing what is morally right or wrong adding thatthe conditions in Kashmir forced him to resign.

Responding to a question about his future plans, Gopinathan said he had notthought that far.