A police officer in Uttar Pradesh has been suspended on the charge of “indiscipline” for keeping a beard without taking “formal permission” from the department.

Sub-inspector Intsar Ali, 50, however, said his request for permission to keep a beard had been pending with the department for almost a year now and that he had never faced any problem or resistance to sporting facial hair during his 25-year service in Uttar Pradesh police.

Baghpat police chief Abhishek Singh, who has issued the suspension order, said Ali, attached to Ramala police station, 580km west of Lucknow, had disregarded instructions to seek formal permission.

“As per the dress code of the police manual, all policemen, except members of the Sikh community, are expected to take formal permission from the department for keeping a long beard. However, they can keep a long moustache. The SI had been asked twice in the past to take formal permission but he ignored the instructions. He has been suspended for indiscipline,” Singh said.

“Ali has ignored the dress code in the past also. The notice was served to him after an inquiry,” the SP added.

Ali said he had submitted an application with the police department in November 2019 for permission to grow a beard. “But the department has yet to respond to it. I will soon complete the departmental process,” the sub-inspector said.

“I have served UP police for 25 years, and until now nobody had stopped me from keeping a beard,” added Ali, who joined the force in 1994 and has been posted in Baghpat for the past three years. Ali, a native of Saharanpur, said his beard at present was around 6 inches long.

The Baghpat SP’s office, however, denied that Ali had submitted any application seeking permission to grow a beard and that he had been served a notice earlier “for not following uniform protocol and trimming his beard”.

Although the police have quoted chapter and verse of the rules and discipline is undeniably the abiding principle of the security forces, keeping a beard has been a symbol of faith and culture for Muslims and instances of suspension for sporting facial hair have been rare.

A senior official in the Union home ministry said policemen were not permitted to keep a beard “to maintain uniformity in service and a smart look”, but a minority community member could seek and receive permission to grow facial hair.

Publicly sporting religious symbols have led to harassment, and even turned fatal sometimes, for the minority community in the past few years. The country’s Prime Minister himself had insinuated that rioters could be identified by their clothes, and donning articles of faith have sometimes invited consequences as dire as lynching. The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the saffron-robed Yogi Adityanath, has often made inflammatory comments such as spotting a “green virus” and gone on a spree to rechristen places with Muslim names.

After the February riots in Delhi in which 53 people had lost their lives, many Muslims had shaved off their beard and avoided wearing skullcaps for fear of being singled out for attacks.

The Supreme Court had in 2003 ordered the reinstatement of Assam Rifles jawan Hyder Ali and the payment of his dues since his sacking in 1997 for keeping a beard.