West Bengal: Trinamool Congress (TMC) senior leader and Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra questioned IPS and IAS associations over their inability to address the alleged religious discrimination faced by senior Muslim officers in Bengal after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power.
Moitra has named several instances where senior IPS and IAS officers were asked to leave or not be present at events attended by Union ministers.
In an X post, she alleged that during Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s tour to the state, Siliguri Police Commissioner Waquar Raza was barred from the welcome lineup. In another episode, Director General of the Special Task Force (STF) Jawed Shamim was allegedly not invited.
She charged at the IPS Association and IAS Association, asking why such cases were not taken up and called it “communal nonsense”.
“Muslim officers in West Bengal disallowed if Amit Shah is present — CP Siliguri Waquar Raza banned from welcome lineup, Jawed Shamim DG STF not invited anywhere, and Khalil Ahmed IAS made to leave meeting. Won’t you protest this sick communal nonsense?” she said, tagging the IPS Association and IAS Association.
The saffron party took over West Bengal in May, marking its spectacular debut and overthrowing TMC’s 15-year rule. Chief Minister Suvendhu Adhikari, who has never shied away from making inflammatory statements against the Muslim community, had openly declared he would work only for “Hindus who voted for him”.
His 41-member ministry has no Muslim representation.
The BJP government has also discontinued religion-based honorariums for imams and muezzins and forbidden namaz in public spaces and has launched a stringent crackdown on alleged Bangladeshi migrants. It has also cut short funding for madrassa boards.
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