Moradabad: A Special MP-MLA Court has sentenced the senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan and his son, Abdullah Azam Khan two years of jail in the 2008 case for blocking traffic and staging a protest on a highway after their vehicle was stopped for checking by the police in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh on January 29, 2008.
The incident occurred in the wake of a terror attack on a CRPF camp in the neighbouring Rampur District, in which seven jawans and a rickshaw puller were killed on December 31, 2007. The FIR against the SP leaders was lodged at the Chhajlet police station in 2008.
The SP leader’s vehicle was stopped for having black-tinted windows. Azam Khan’s son, SP MLA Abdullah Azam Khan, was driving the car and failed to produce the vehicle’s documents when asked to do so by the police. Azam Khan, seated at the back, stepped out of the vehicle and escalated the altercation with the police. Other SP members reached the spot, further escalating the confrontation and blocking the road in protest.
The Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Smita Goswami sentenced the SP leader Azam Khan and his son, Abdullah Azam Khan, to two years imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 3000/- on each of them. The father-son duo later filed a bail application which was granted to them by the Court. The duo was released after submitting the required surety.
Abdullah Azam Khan is the MLA from Suar, Rampur constituency and is set to lose his MLA seat due to his conviction in the present case. In November 2022, BJP MLA Vikram Saini lost his MLA seat of Khatauli after a local court in Muzaffarnagar and was sentenced to two years imprisonment in a case related to the 2013 riots. Saini’s constituency, Khatauli, was declared vacant after the conviction.
The Special Court convicted the father-son duo under Indian Penal Code’s section 341 (wrongful restraint) and section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge from his duty) and other provisions. The SP leaders have now been granted bail after the verdict. The Special Court acquitted seven other accused in this case citing lack of evidence, including SP MLA from Amroha, Mehboob Ali, and former MLAs Haqi Ikram Qureshi and Naim-ul-Hasan.
However, this is not Azam Khan’s first conviction. The SP leader was convicted to three years imprisonment in a hate speech case connected to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Azam Khan’s Rampur seat was declared vacant after his conviction. UP Police’s records show that over 83 cases have been registered against Azam Khan and 41 cases against his son, Abdullah Azam Khan, since BJP came to power in 2017.
