A Kashmiri man arrested for declaring he had no expectations from non-local officers has been released and has vowed to be cautious the next time he approaches officials on issues of public importance.

Ganderbal activist Sajad Rashid Sofi said he hadn’t said “anything offensive”. He suggested the reaction by non-local IAS officer Krittika Jyotsna, who sent him to jail, had been prompted by a comment from the adviser to lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha.

The police released Sofi on Tuesday night after he had spent five days in jail, the administration apparently yielding to the outcry over his arrest. Such reprieves are rare in Kashmir.“I will not stop visiting officers to seek redress to public grievances. But the next time I shall write a qasida (eulogy) or rubai (poem) and humbly request, ‘Please rectify the matter... be kind enough’,” Sofi told The Telegraph.

“Whatever I say, I shall try to be cool. It’s because of some pressure (that I was released). Otherwise the possibility was — particularly if I had any small (adverse comment) in the police records — they would have booked me under the (anti-terror) Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.”

Sofi is alleged to have offended Ganderbal deputy commissioner Jyotsna during a Janata Darbar outreach programme on June 10 when he made a comment about non-Kashmiri officials to Baseer Khan, adviser to the lieutenant governor and a local man.

“I can grab you by the collar and seek answers. But what expectations can I have from officers who are not from the state?” Sofi said.

Sofi told this newspaper that it was Khan’s reply that seemed to touch a raw nerve with Jyotsna, who was raised in Hyderabad.He told this paper: “Baseer Sahab said, ‘Why did you utter the word Kashmiri’ and that ‘We are all Indians here’. Initially she (Jyotsna) did not mind. (Following Khan’s remarks), she stood up (and objected to my comment). Baseer Sahab later tried to placate her and asked her to sit down.”

“I think that was one of the reasons (she objected). The fact is I had got a little emotional because it was the fourth time we were meeting the adviser to the lieutenant governor for redress of our grievances.”

Sofi, a former sarpanch and son of a retired police officer, was arrested on June 10 on the charge of prompting enmity between different groups. Two days later he was granted bail by a court but the police added two more charges (abetment and joining assembly likely to cause disturbance in peace) and refused to release him.

An activist and associate of Sofi who requested anonymity told this newspaper the police had on Tuesday said they would release him in two or three days.

“But later in the evening, because of pressure from different quarters, we received a call and were told to apply afresh for bail before a tehsildar. We did and he was released at night,” he said.

Khan, contacted for his reaction, said he had “no idea” about the arrest and the controversy.

Sofi said he and his civil society team had been seeking the establishment of a degree college, upgrade of the local health centre, land for a playground and a solid waste management department for the development of the Manasbal lake.

“I told him (Khan) that your officers — I was not referring to the DC (Jyotsna) who had joined only recently — had done nothing. I repeated the word thrice,” he said.

“I told him (Khan) that you are a Kashmiri and I too am a Kashmiri. It is as though somebody is from Ganderbal and I tell him, ‘You are from Ganderbal and if you can’t solve it, who else will?’… I think I did not say anything offensive.”

Khan was divisional commissioner for Kashmir when Article 370 was diluted in 2019. He is believed to have been rewarded for his role during the crisis.