Samajwadi leader Azam convicted, awarded 2-year jail term in another hate speech case
LUCKNOW: Rampur MP/MLA court has convicted the former lawmaker Azam Khan in another hate speech case registered against him during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections campaign and sentenced him to two years imprisonment on Saturday.
The case against the Samajwadi Party stalwart Azam Khan was registered for derogatory remarks against the then Rampur district magistrate Anjaneya Kumar Singh and UP CM Yogi Adityanath in 2019 while campaigning himself as he was contesting as SP-BSP alliance candidate from Rampur parliamentary constituency.
The complaint against Khan was filed by Rampur district’s assistant development officer (Panchayat) Anil Kumar Chauhan at Shahjad Nagar police station after a video clip of Azam Khan’s speech went viral on social media.
Notably, Azam Khan was convicted in another case of hate speech also delivered during the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign. He was sentenced to three years in jail by an MP-MLA magistrate court on October 27, 2022. This led to his disqualification from the UP Assembly two days later.
It is pertinent to mention here that Azam Khan had contested the Assembly election of 2022 from the Rampur Sadar's seat quitting his Lok Sabha membership from Rampur parliamentary constituency resulting in the by-poll which was held in June 2022. The Samajwadi Party lost the seat to the BJP’s Ghanshyam Lodhi.
However, on an appeal filed by Khan to challenge his conviction, the sessions court, designated to try parliamentarians and legislators in Rampur, overturned the conviction and acquitted the Samajwadi Party leader in the case in May, this year.
After Khan’s disqualification from the assembly in October 2022, a by-poll was held in the Rampur Sadar assembly seat which was wrested by BJP’s Akash Saxena, the complainant in a number of 89 cases registered against Khan in different courts in Rampur and others. Saxena won the Rampur Sadar seat by defeating Khan’s close aide and SP candidate Asim Raja.
The acquittal from the sessions court did not help Azam Khan since he and his son Abdullah Azam Khan were also convicted and sentenced to two years in jail on February 14, 2023, by a Moradabad court in connection with a 2008 case for blocking traffic after their vehicle was stopped by the police for checking in Moradabad.
Khan was a cabinet minister in the Samajwadi Party government led by Akhilesh Yadav from 2012-2017. He was released from Sitapur district jail in May 2022 after remaining behind bars for 27 months following a bail granted to him by the Supreme Court of India in a land-grab case. He walked out of prison after receiving bail in all 81 of 89 cases lodged against him.