Lucknow: Veteran Samajwadi Party leader and former cabinet minister Azam Khan was convicted by a Rampur court on Saturday for two years in a hate speech case lodged during the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign. This is the third case in the past six months in which Khan has been convicted.
Joint director (prosecution) Shiv Prakash Pandey said that the court convicted Azam Khan under Indian Penal Code’s sections 505 (1) B (act likely to cause fear or alarm to the public, or public tranquillity) and 171G (false statement in connection with an election). He was also convicted under section 125 (promoting enmity between classes in connection with election) of the Representation of the People Act.
Pandey said that the court had examined seven prosecution and 11 defence witnesses. He also added that Azam Khan had applied for a bail, but the court is yet to decide on it.
The case was lodged at the Shahjad Nagar police station in Rampur on April 8, 2019, in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. He was accused of giving an inflammatory speech targeting the Uttar Pradesh chief minister and the district magistrate, who was also the returning officer, at a public meeting in the Milak Vidhan Sabha area.
The complaint was filed by Rampur district’s assistant development officer (panchayat) Anil Kumar Chauhan after a video clip of Azam Khan’s speech went viral.
The speech was made when the SP and BSP were contesting the elections in an alliance. Khan won the Rampur Lok Sabha seat beating the BJP’s Jaya Prada. He gave up his Lok Sabha membership after he was elected as an MLA in the state elections.
A Moradabad court in February this year had sentenced Khan and his son Abdullah Azam to two years’ imprisonment in a 15-year-old case for blocking traffic after their vehicle was stopped by police for checking. The court, however, granted bail to both. This was his second conviction.
Likewise, in another case of October 2022, Khan was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment by a Rampur court in another hate speech case, also lodged during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. This was his first conviction.
The case was related to alleged use of objectionable words for Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and others. The conviction led to his disqualification from the Assembly and resulted in a by-poll that was won by the BJP candidate.
Since the BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017, 81 cases have been registered against Khan in Rampur on various charges, including land grab, cheating and criminal trespass. His wife and son were also booked in some of these cases. All three are currently out on bail. ED has also booked Azam Khan and family in a PMLA case.
