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Mahua Moitra petitions UN over Muslim officers’ ‘deliberate exclusion’ from Amit Shah’s meetings

These omissions could hardly be brushed aside as mere administrative error, Moitra argued, pointing out that while the officers kept their titles, their duties were assigned to colleagues, leaving their Muslim identities as the solitary thread binding their banishment from the room.

Undeterred by a police investigation over her public allegations, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra has escalated her row with the BJP government to the international stage, petitioning the UN over what she terms the systematic exclusion of senior Muslim bureaucrats from events held by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

In a formal representation to Professor Nicolas Levrat, the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Moitra claimed that three high-ranking Muslim officers in West Bengal were repeatedly side-lined from official security briefings and protocol rosters during Shah’s state visits in July and August 2026. Non-Muslim counterparts, she noted, were permitted to attend unimpeded.

The petition names Syed Waqar Raza, Commissioner of the Siliguri Police; Jawed Shamim, Directsidelined of the state’s Special Task Force (STF); and Khalil Ahmed, Additional Chief Secretary for Fire and Emergency Services.

According to the letter, Raza was unceremoniously struck from the attendees’ list for a crucial border-security review covering the strategically sensitive Siliguri Corridor, with an Inspector General deputed in his stead. Moitra alleged that Raza’s name was physically excised from the official protocol, and that he was explicitly barred from joining the departure line to see off the Home Minister.

Shamim was reportedly instructed to stay away from the same security conclave, represented instead by a subordinate, and was later barred from an official exhibition on the country’s new criminal codes. During Shah’s Kolkata visit on 19 July, Ahmed was purportedly asked to leave an inter-departmental meeting on disaster preparedness midway through proceedings.

The MP said such conduct, if established, would have implications beyond the individual officers, as it could undermine confidence among West Bengal’s Muslim population in the neutrality of security and law-enforcement institutions.

She urged the UN Special Rapporteur to seek an explanation from the Government of India, ensure that officials are not excluded from state functions on religious grounds, and seek preservation of CCTV footage, tour diaries and official protocol records relating to Shah’s visits.

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