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Stirring up the age-old controversy, the Uttar Pradesh police have re-launched a campaign to remove illegal loudspeakers from religious places, where “noise pollution has reached alarming levels”.
So far, UP Police has removed around 700 loudspeakers installed at religious places in districts like Kanpur and Lucknow and said the drive will continue.
according to the direction of CM
The UP Police move came after a recent meeting chaired by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, where he is said to have said that previously removed loudspeakers are back on.
“During my recent visits to the regions, I have seen that the loudspeakers are working again and this is unacceptable. Officers should immediately remove the loudspeakers through a call,” said Adityanath, at a recent high-level meeting aimed at reviewing the work of the Home Ministry.
In addition, the cabinet also directed officials to conduct a dialogue with the DJ and music system operators, to ensure that they do not violate the Supreme Court’s order on noise pollution.
More than 700 speakers have been removed by far
UP Police moved into action, following the CM’s order and launched a campaign to ensure that the loudspeakers were removed.
Lucknow Police may have been the first to take the lead, removing 400 loudspeakers so far. “On the instructions of the state government, loudspeakers installed in religious structures affecting the masses and their interests have been removed. Rahul Raj, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Lucknow West, said people are also collaborating with us to make the anti-tweeter drive a success.
The Kanpur police were next to follow up on the drill. “A campaign to remove loudspeakers was carried out in all four districts of the Kanpur Police Commission. Five police teams were pressed into action to make the campaign a success. While driving, the decibel levels of the loudspeakers were checked and approx. 320 loudspeakers from temples, mosques, shrines and other places.”
Not new
This isn’t the first time that controversy has erupted over the use of loudspeakers in religious spaces in UP. In 2022, the UP government orders the removal of loudspeakers from religious venues across the state. The Department of Home Affairs has sought a compliance report by April 30, 2022 from all counties and police commissioners on the removal/reduction of loudspeakers, as directed by the UP Pollution Control Board. Officials at the Ministry of Interior confirmed that loudspeakers were removed from all religious places without discrimination.
The UP board said last year that everyone is free to follow their own style of worship according to their religious ideology. “While microphones can be used, make sure the sound doesn’t come out of nowhere. Others should have no problem,” he said.
In 2022, UP Police removed 57,000 loudspeakers and downgraded 62,000 loudspeakers. As one of the first steps in this direction, a loudspeaker installed above Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi in Mathura was muted on 20 April. As a result, the ‘Manglacharan Aarti’, which was kept for an hour from 5 am, was not broadcast through the loudspeaker of the Bhagwat Bhavan on the premise of Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi. The Shaktipeeth Devipatan Tulsipur temple in Balrampur removed three of its four loudspeakers and lowered the volume to permissible limits. In Gorakhpur, the Gorakhnath Temple Trust reduced the volume of the building’s loudspeakers. In Meerut, the volume of the loudspeaker at Rajrajeshwari Temple has been lowered. In Kanpur, the Mandir-Moot Coordinating Committee has also removed loudspeakers from temples. And in Ayodhya, all the eminent seers of the temple city gave their support to the state government’s initiative to monitor the loudspeakers.
In several districts, senior clerics have asked mosque committees to reduce the volume of loudspeakers as per the directives of the Prime Minister, and the maximum number of loudspeakers (2395) has been removed from Lucknow which has about 700 mosques, of which about 40 are Shia mosques. . Lucknow was followed by 1,788 speakers in Gorakhpur district, 1,366 in Varanasi district, 1,204 in Meerut district, 1,172 in Prayagraj district, 1,070 in Bareilly district, 1,056 in Kanpur district, and 413 in Agra district.
UP Police removed more than 57,000 loudspeakers and downgraded about 62,000 loudspeakers last year.
However, the numbers of removed tweeters are likely to rise this year because numbers from other regions have yet to be collected.
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