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Yusuf Pathan asks Shah to step in, halt removal of Murshidabad loudspeakers
Three rebel Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs who left the party and joined the NCPI, sought Union home minister Amit Shah’s “urgent intervention”
Three rebel Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs who left the party and joined the NCPI, sought Union home minister Amit Shah’s “urgent intervention” on Thursday to stop the removal of loudspeakers from mosques in Murshidabad district at the instance of the local police.
In a memorandum submitted to the home minister’s office, the MPs said that while they “fully respect” the law and the Supreme Court’s directions on noise regulation, the government must ensure “fair, uniform, and sensitive implementation without hurting religious sentiments.”
The three MPs, Yusuf Pathan (Baharampur), Abu Taher Khan (Murshidabad), Khallilur Rehman (Jangipur), won their seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha on a TMC ticket. The three were among the 20 MPs who left the TMC and joined the little-known NCPI, an unrecognised party that contested two assembly seats in Tripura and polled a few hundred votes, that backs the BJP.
The three Muslim MPs from Bengal’s Muslim-majority Murshidabad district, however, have, however, skipped National Democratic Alliance (NDA) meetings saying they would not support any legislation either that goes against the interest of Muslims.
The memorandum on Thursday comes against the backdrop of reports from Bengal that mosques were being forced to remove loudspeakers used for azan (call for prayers) by local police officers.
West Bengal Police officials have maintained in the past that the curbs were being enforced uniformly across all religious structures in line with Supreme Court and National Green Tribunal (NGT) orders on noise pollution, and were not directed at any one community.
The memorandum also flagged delays in deciding pending Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) tribunal cases.
“A large number of genuine voters whose names have been deleted from the electoral rolls are awaiting tribunal decisions. The delay is causing difficulties in passport verification, land registration, and access to government welfare schemes,” the MPs said in the memorandum, seeking that all pending genuine cases be fast-tracked and disposed of by the end of this year.
The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls carried out by the Election Commission ahead of the 2026 West Bengal assembly polls, resulted in the deletion of about 4.55 lakh names in Murshidabad district alone, the highest among all districts in the state, according to Election Commission data.
