Three Muslim members of the West Bengal legislative assembly from the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) met India’s home minister Amit Shah to protest at loudspeakers being removed from mosques in West Bengal in the name of noise-pollution control.
The meeting with Amit Shah took place in Delhi on Thursday (6 August). At it, they demanded that the Supreme Court’s noise-pollution guidelines apply equally to all religions, and that a single religion should not be targeted.
The three minority MLAs who attended were Abu Taher, Khalilur Rahman and former cricketer Yusuf Pathan. In the brief meeting, they seriously raised the issue of loudspeakers being removed from mosques in the state.
After the meeting, Abu Taher made clear that the Supreme Court’s guidelines would be acceptable to them only when they applied equally to the rituals of all religions. They had no objection if the same rule was enforced for Durga Puja or Kali Puja too, he said. But selectively targeting only Muslims to take down loudspeakers from mosques was very unfortunate and painful, he said.
According to sources, after hearing the complaint, Amit Shah assured them of further steps on the matter.
Under the state noise-pollution control board’s old guidelines and the Supreme Court’s rules, there is a ban on playing loudspeakers loudly at any place of worship. Citing these guidelines, the process of removing loudspeakers from several mosques across the state has recently begun, the administration said.
The ISF and the West Bengal state unit of Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind have already spoken out against this police step, alleging “arbitrary” behaviour. ISF MLA Naushad Siddiqui has also warned of going to the Calcutta High Court over the matter.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report