Moitra wrote to Nicolas Levrat, the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, on September 16, seeking information from the Government of India about what she described as discriminatory treatment during Shah’s visits to Kolkata and Siliguri in July and August. Levrat is an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council.
The Krishnanagar MP named Siliguri Police Commissioner Syed Waquar Raza, West Bengal Police Special Task Force chief Jawed Shamim and senior IAS officer Khalil Ahmed. She alleged that they were asked to leave meetings, omitted from protocol duties or told not to attend official programmes while officers of other faiths were permitted to participate.
Shah visited West Bengal from August 20 to 22, with engagements in Siliguri that included security and administrative reviews. Moitra’s complaint also refers to his July 19 Kolkata programme, linking the alleged exclusions to separate official occasions there.
The allegations have not been independently established, and no publicly available order has been produced showing that any officer was excluded because of religion. There was no immediate public response from the Union Home Ministry or Shah addressing the specific claims contained in Moitra’s letter.
Moitra said Raza was kept out of the protocol arrangements for Shah’s reception and departure in Siliguri, with Inspector-General of Police, North Bengal, Sukesh Kumar Jain taking his place. She also alleged that Raza was asked not to attend a border-security review during Shah’s August visit.
Her letter further claimed that Shamim, then heading the state Special Task Force, was asked not to attend a Siliguri security meeting and that Inspector-General Gaurav Sharma represented the unit instead. Moitra said Shamim was also excluded from another official engagement linked to an exhibition on the new criminal laws.
Regarding Ahmed, Moitra alleged that the additional chief secretary responsible for fire and emergency services arrived for a law-and-order and disaster-preparedness meeting chaired by Shah in Kolkata on July 19 but was asked to leave. She said other senior officials remained at the meeting.
Moitra argued that the officers’ religion was the common feature distinguishing them from colleagues who were allowed to remain at the events. She characterised the episodes as a pattern of deliberate exclusion and asked Levrat to seek an explanation from India’s government about the reasons for the alleged decisions and the authority under which they were made.
She also requested preservation of CCTV footage, tour diaries, attendance records and other official material connected with Shah’s visits, saying those records could help establish what happened. Her submission cited protections against discrimination in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues is part of the UN’s system of independent human rights experts. The mandate covers national, ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and allows the rapporteur to receive information, communicate concerns to governments and make recommendations. Such communications do not by themselves amount to judicial findings or binding determinations.
Moitra had first raised the allegations publicly on September 1, tagging associations representing IAS and IPS officers and questioning why they had not spoken about the claimed exclusions. Her social-media post named the same three officers later listed in the submission to Levrat.
A police complaint was subsequently filed against Moitra in Diamond Harbour over the post, and the cybercrime police summoned her for questioning. The UN communication is separate from that police matter and centres on her request for scrutiny of the alleged treatment of the officers during official visits.
