Kolkata: Sheikh Liyaqat Hossein has lived his entire life in a narrow lane of Mollapara in Shibpur, Howrah. He studied up to Class 8 at the local Shibpur Ramkrishna Daridra Bhander School before financial hardship forced him to drop out and led him to a job in the Indian Railways. He worked as a carpenter at the Eastern Railway’s Liluah workshop, eventually retiring last year after 40 years of service to a state-owned enterprise.On January 27, Hossein, a voter listed on Part 304 of the Howrah Madhya assembly constituency received an official notice in which he was told that a complaint had been received on his presence in the voter list and notwithstanding his record of government service, the reason cited in the complaint was that he was a “suspected non-Indian citizen”. The challenge was initiated through a Form 7 complaint filed by a voter from Part No 201, a distant locality in the same constituency. The Wire is withholding the name as the person appears to be a private citizen and could not be contacted yet. The complaint, however, triggered a Form 14 notice from the Election Commission of India, under the Registration of Electors Rules, the formal legal process used in India to challenge an individual’s right to remain on the voter list.Holding his Indian Railways service records and a provident fund passbook as proof of his lifelong contribution to the state, Hossein expressed his disbelief at the situation. “My father and grandfather lived here all their lives, and I was born and brought up here,” he said. “I have my service records and everything, yet now I am being asked to prove I am an Indian citizen. Is it because I am a Muslim?” he asked.Similar notices have been received by nearly all adult members of his extended family, all triggered by Form 7 applications filed by three individuals from another community, living at three different addresses. None of the electors who received these notices have any inkling as to who these complainants are. The objections originated from names and addresses entirely foreign to their daily lives.Farruk Hossein Sardar, a cloth vendor from nearby Ghulam Hussain Sardar Lane in Howrah, is another resident caught in a sudden challenge to his citizenship. Born and raised in the area, a fact verified by his former primary school classmates, Sardar has held an Indian passport since 2018. He even used the document to travel to Medina, for Haj with his wife Fulan Sardar, who has also been served a notice. Despite their documented history and government-issued travel papers, both were summoned to a hearing to prove their status as Indian citizens.While officials at the hearing eventually accepted his passport as valid evidence, Sardar remains deeply unsettled by the process. Expressing his frustration over being targeted by a stranger, Sardar asked, “I received a notice asking me to appear for a hearing on February 5 to prove that I am an Indian citizen. I went there with my Indian passport, and the officials have accepted it – but who made these complaints?”Form 7 is a statutory tool that allows any individual to object to a name on the voter list. In January, the Election Commission of India (ECI) clarified that there is no cap on how many forms a single person can submit, an open-access policy that has triggered a contentious pattern where legitimate voters are summoned based on complaints from total strangers. Form 7 rules stipulate that the complaint has to come from a person within the same constituency but naturally this does not guarantee that a voter knows their Form 7 objector.In North 24 Pargana’s Khardah assembly constituency, a 71-year-old tribal woman was listed as an objector to 11 electors, yet officials who spoke to The Wire requesting anonymity said that they discovered that the phone number provided against her name does not exist. Upon perusal of voter rolls within the same constituency, The Wire identified a single family of eight submitting Form 7 applications to delete 24 electors from a different community residing in another Panchayat. This correspondent also identified 20 individuals from one polling station – number 159 – who filed objections against 95 electors from another polling station – number 167 – all claiming that their reason for raising a complaint was the suspicion that the voters were “non-Indian citizens”. When election officials made attempts to verify the objections, the phone numbers given on the Form 7 applications were found not to be working, they said. The Wire is not disclosing the name and designation of the election official who revealed this at his request. In some cases, the objectors themselves have denied ever filing an objection or knowledge that such an objection was filed in their name. This systematic approach mirrors the situation in Howrah Madhya, where a small group of individuals residing in one corner of the constituency filed hundreds of complaints against Muslim voters living in distant neighbourhoods. ’15 electors from just a single page in the above electoral roll have filed Form 7 objections against 45 people.’A suspicious pattern also emerges in the electoral rolls, where the names of these objectors appear in a specific numerical order, suggesting a coordinated or automated filing process rather than organic community concerns. For example, 15 electors from just a single page in the above electoral roll have filed Form 7 objections against 45 people. Yet, not a single person in the left-hand column (serial numbers 292, 295, 298, 301, 304, 307, 310, and 313) seems to have filed a complaint. It is curious that Form 7 objectors appear to follow a pattern. These findings lead to allegations of an effort to use “ghost” objectors to target specific demographics across the state.Across the state, 5,42,501 Form 7 objections have been filed, a senior source at the ECI said, with many specifically targeting minority communities with deep ancestral roots. On average, this translates to roughly 1,850 challenged voters per constituency, a figure significant enough to flip the outcome of closely contested seats in the 294 assembly constituencies. The sheer scale of these anonymous filings has raised alarms about a coordinated effort towards targeted disenfranchisement, a concern loudly echoed by the Trinamool Congress and the Left parties. TMC and CPI(M) leaders have characterised the surge in Form 7 objections as a “political instrument of control” designed to weed out specific voter groups, particularly within minority and marginalised communities. To provide a clearer picture of this impact, The Wire has reached out to the ECI for a constituency-level and district-level breakdown of all Form 7 submissions. This report will be updated if and when the ECI releases its official figures.Amid mounting controversy, the ECI issued a late-evening directive on February 15. Citing allegations of records being burnt in areas like Chakulia and Farakka, the ECI ordered that all Form 7 objections currently held in CEO and DEO offices be forwarded immediately to local electoral registration officers and additional electoral registration officers by February 16, 2026, for disposal. The ECI has also invoked its powers to suspend seven additional electoral registration officers in West Bengal with immediate effect for “serious misconduct, dereliction of duty and misuse of statutory powers” linked to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. As the Supreme Court intensifies its legal scrutiny, the sheer scale of the electoral roll revision remains staggering. The ECI has indicated that 6.98 lakh names are at risk of initial deletion, while verification is currently pending for 15 lakh voters and documents for 50 lakh others are undergoing re-verification.The ECI has also returned the documentation of 20 lakh voters to District Magistrates for further review because the submitted papers did not match the ECI’s prescribed citizenship verification guidelines. In a polling station in the Alipurduar district, an analysis of the draft SIR roll reveals that out of 112 individuals with names traditionally associated with the Muslim community, nearly half have been flagged by the ECI’s officials, suggesting a pattern of significant bias.‘Out of 112 individuals with names traditionally associated with the Muslim community, nearly half have been flagged by the ECI’s officials, suggesting a pattern of significant bias.’ The above image has been shared with The Wire by an official tasked with SIR duties.In the first phase, District Election Officers (DEOs) were responsible for verifying documents from voters attending hearings. Simultaneously, the ECI had assigned observers the specific task of verifying documents uploaded by voters after their hearings. In the final stage of the hearings, the ECI relieved the observers from the hearing centres and engaged micro-observers to verify documents on a district-wise basis.As the deadline draws closer, the credibility of the drive hinges on whether the process can protect legitimate voters like Hossein and Sardar from a system that currently allows strangers to weaponise the bureaucracy.