সোমবার সকালেই সোশ্যাল মিডিয়ায় বিতর্কিত মন্তব্য করলেন গায়ক সোনু নিগম। সকালবেলা স্থানীয় মসজিদ থেকে আজানের ভেসে আসা শব্দে ঘুম ভেঙে যাওয়াতে বেজায় চটে যান সোনু। টুইটারে লেখেন, ‘ভগবান সবার মঙ্গল করুন। আমি মুসলমান নই। তবু সকালে আজানের শব্দে আমাকে জেগে উঠতে হয়। ভারতে এই জোর করে ধর্ম জাহির করা কবে বন্ধ হবে।’

একই সঙ্গে পর পর কয়েকটি টুইট করে সোনু লেখেন, ‘আর মহম্মদ যখন ইসলামের প্রচার শুরু করেন তখন তো বিদ্যুৎ ছিল না। এডিসনের পর কেন আমাকে এই চেঁচামেচি সহ্য করতে হবে?

শুধু নামাজের আজানই নয়, টুইটে মন্দির ও গুরুদ্বারের সমালোচনাও করেন সোনু। তিনি লেখেন, ‘মন্দির বা গুরুদ্বারে বিদ্যুৎ ব্যবহার করে মন্দির বা গুরুদ্বার থেকে মানুষকে ঘুম থেকে তোলায় আমি বিশ্বাস করি না। বিশেষত যে সব মানুষ সেই ধর্ম পালন করেন না। তাহলে কেন?’

এই প্রবণতাকে গুণ্ডাগিরি বলে অভিহিত করেন সোনু। তবে তাঁর মন্তব্যের জন্য বিভিন্ন মহল থেকে সমালোচনাতেও পড়তে হয় তাঁকে। কারও মতে, ভারত গণতান্ত্রিক দেশ এবং সেখানে সবারই মত প্রকাশের অধিকার রয়েছে। কেউ কেউ একে ধর্মীয় জিগির তোলার চেষ্টা বলেও অভিযোগ করেন।

কোন তারকা কি বলল সোনু নিগমের বিতর্কিত টুইটের পর ....

শান-
I support what he has tweeted, not because he is a friend but because he is right. The law of the land is equal to all. People should be considerate towards each other. Be it Azaan or Hanuman Chalisa jaap or for any other religious practice, one must understand that noise pollution must be curtailed. Everyone has the right to enjoy their festivals and practice their religion but not at the cost of disturbing others,” says the singer adding that he is also against religious processions during various festivals as that leads to conjestion and disturbs daily life.

বাবা শেহগল -
This is a very sensitive issue. I am a Sikh and I have many Muslim and Hindu friends, so I will never tweet something like this of course. Even if something is troubling me, I would take it in a positive stride. So I think that is his (Sonu Nigam) perspective that he wrote but definitely, it’s not a very positive tweet. We are divided into various religions in India and we are all one, but at the same time, everybody is very sensitive about their own religion. So if someone writes something derogatory about Sikhism or Punjab, of course I would not like it. I will also react the same way how others are reacting to Sonu’s tweets. I have been living in Yaari Road in Mumbai and various Muslim areas and sounds of Azaan (mosque’s call to prayers) doesn’t really bother me. I believe that anything that happens in any religion eventually becomes a part of our culture. If somebody is doing Ganpati visarjan and playing dandiya or doing Lakshmi Pooja, some people may object to the fact that roads get occupied at the time of visarjan, but you have to accept the fact that we are living in a country that has various religions and we have to accept an respect each of them.

মোনা মহাপাত্র--

As humans, we tend to react instinctively to anything. We should be more sensitive to each other’s comforts. Any religion or anybody seeking spiritual salvation doesn’t need a plea – be it Muslims singing the Azaan or Hindus with their bhajans. Also, I feel somewhere, the cities we live in, there’s a lot of ‘live and let live’ that we have to adopt. People who cannot sing, also sing blaring Hindi bhajans into the microphone and everybody suffers. That is not okay by me either. I don’t know Sonu’s intentions or in what context he said it, but I personally feel we are very insensitive to each other’s beliefs.

হার্ড কাউর--
I live near Milat Nagar and it’s very loud over there. You can’t make an issue about noise in India because there are drills happening, music playing, honks on the roads all day long. I can’t complain about noise pollution in this country. I can’t have issues that are involved with anybody’s religious beliefs anyway. I think people have stopped understanding. When someone visits me from UK, they ask me ‘what’s that’ and I tell them, it’s Azaan that happens six times, and they ask me ‘if it happens in the morning’ and I say, ‘yeah, does it bother you’, and they’re like ‘no, we’ll get used to it.’ So you just have to get used to the fact that we live here, in a messy situation because it’s a buzzy place. So we have to get along with each other and be understanding to each other. We do celebrate our religion in a loud way and we can’t complain about that. You’re not living in UK where there are rules and regulations. You live in India and have to live with each other peacefully.

কৈলাস খের --
Sonu has highlighted an important aspect of our life. Inhoney yeh bahut gehri baat boli hain. I think we can’t impose religion on anyone. Humanity is the biggest religion. You will see people preaching love and harmony but how many of us follow it? I guess proper education is the need of the hour and that can only help people realise that we should give more importance to humanity and not religion. We all talk about change that we want to bring or have brought, but mujhe lagta hain abhi kuch bhi nahin badla hain. Badlao andar sey aani chahiye jaise Kabira ne bhi bola hain.

জুবিন নাটিয়াল --
India is a democratic country. It’s a beautiful place where people follow different religions and are living in harmony. So when many brothers and sisters are living together in a house, some kind of conflicts will obviously take place. I don’t think religion is forced on anybody. People follow what they want to. I don’t see an issue here.