The Jammu and Kashmir government has sacked a senior faculty member at Srinagar Government College, who also heads a faction of the Doctors Association of Kashmir, along with three others including a policeman and a teacher “in the interest of the state”, as part of its crackdown on employees who are seen as sympathetic to the separatist cause.

These are the first terminations since Rashmi Ranjan Swain took over as the new police chief of Jammu and Kashmir on October 28. The government has fired more than 50 employees in the crackdown since April 2001, when a task force was set up to hunt down alleged anti-national employees.

The dismissed employees include faculty members at Kashmir University, policemen, teachers and other senior officials.

Officials said Dr Nisar ul Hassan, assistant professor (medicine), GMC Srinagar, constable Abdul Majeed Bhat, laboratory bearer in the higher education department Abdul Salam Rather, and teacher in the education department Farooq Ahmad Mir were dismissed from service “in the interest of the state”.

The four were sacked on Tuesday but their termination orders were made public on Wednesday.

Hassan, ironically, was sacked on the same day he was promoted by the government from assistant professor to associate professor. He figured in a list of 31 doctors who were promoted on November 21 at GMC Srinagar in an order issued by Bhupinder Singh, secretary in the health and medical education department.

“The family was obviously celebrating and had no clue that the order for his termination was issued the same day he was promoted. He had advance information about his promotion but was clueless about the devastating order made public today,” said an acquaintance.

Hassan has been a vocal face in Kashmir who would freely discuss politics and issues of common interest before the 2019 scrapping of special status. He had been placed under suspension in 2014 for raising his voice against an alleged fake drugs scam but was reinstated four years later.

During the Covid outbreak, he had issued frequent health advisories to people as president of a DAK faction.

The government has invoked Section 311 (2) (C) of the Constitution to sack them. It gives the government freedom to fire employees without holding any inquiry in cases where it believes the “security of state” is involved.

The terminations have evoked anger in Kashmir.

“J&K admin has created an abysmal record of sorts by dismissing more employees than recruiting new ones. Snatching the livelihood of Kashmiris on false trivial grounds isn’t just collective punishment. But also signifies the manner in which all Kashmiris are mistrusted & humiliated on a daily basis,” former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti posted on X.

The government’s general administration department on Tuesday issued separate but almost identical dismissal orders for the four employees.

The orders said it was not expedient to hold enquiries in their cases as their activities were such which warrant their dismissal from service.