Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan gets seven years’ jail in Dungarpur case, fined ₹8 lakh

The special MP/ MLA court (sessions trial) in Rampur on Monday sentenced Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and 10-time former MLA Azam Khan to seven years’ imprisonment and imposed a ₹8 lakh penalty on him in a case of forced demolition of a house in 2016 in the Dungarpur area of Rampur. This is the fifth case in which Khan has been sentenced. He has been acquitted in two cases.

Three others — former deputy superintendent of police Ale Hasan, former muncipal chairman Azhar Ahmad Khan and contractor Barkat Ali — were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and fined ₹3.5 lakh each in the Dungarpur case, which was filed three years after the incident.

ADGC, Rampur, Seema Rana said the court convicted all four under Sections 452 (house trespass), 427 (mischief causing damage), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.

All four accused were present in court through video conferencing when the quantum of punishment was pronounced on Monday. They had been convicted on Friday.

There were seven accused in the case but the court acquitted three of them -- Farhan Khan, Jibran and Omendra Chauhan -- on Friday due to lack of evidence.

Ehtesham Khan, a resident of Dungarpur, had lodged an FIR at the Ganj Kotwali police station in 2019 in which he accused Azam Khan, Ale Hasan, Azhar Khan, Barkat Ali, Farhan Khan, Jibran and Omendra Chauhan of entering his house, beating and abusing him, threatening to kill him, looting ₹25,000 and forcibly taking possession of his house.

While the sentence in the Dungarpur case is the fifth one for Khan, it is the first time his associates – former municipal chairman Azhar Ahmed Khan and retired CO Aale Hasan – have been sentenced.

In all, 108 cases have been registered against Khan in Rampur and other districts. Hearing is going on in 83 cases in different courts.

In October 2022, the MP/MLA court in Rampur sentenced Khan to a three-year prison term in a case related to a hate speech during the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign. Subsequently, he was disqualified from the Uttar Pradesh assembly in which he represented Rampur (Sadar). He was acquitted in this case in May 2023 but the UP government moved the high court against the acquittal. His disqualification remained in force as, by then, as he, along with his son Abdullah Azam Khan, was convicted and sentenced to two years in jail by a Moradabad court in February 2023 for blocking the road and obstructing government work in Chhajlet area of Moradabad in 2008.

In July 2023, a Rampur court sentenced Khan to two years in jail in another hate speech case lodged during the 2019 parliamentary election campaign

An MP/MLA court in Rampur on October 18, 2023 sentenced Khan as well as his wife Tanzeen Fatima, and their son Abdullah Azam Khan to seven years imprisonment each, after they were found guilty of illegally acquiring a fake birth certificate for Abdullah. The case dates back to 2019, when the complainant Akash Saxena (currently a BJP MLA) lodged a complaint alleging that Khan and Fatima through a conspiracy got two birth certificates made for their son. Since then, Khan is lodged in Sitapur jail.