Calls from Hindu groups in India to ban the use of loudspeakers for Azan, the Islamic call to prayer recited by a muezzin at prescribed times of the day from mosques, are growing shriller by the day.

The azan, or call to prayers, the first to be heard in the village since 1947, was read out by H K Pathan, a former assistant commissioner of police with the Railway Protection Force, Mumbai. Last ...