On Saturday, July 15, an MP/MLA court in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur, sentenced senior Samajwadi Party leader to two years of jail term, in a hate speech case from 2019. A fine of Rs 2500 was also levied on Khan by Judge Shobhit Bansal. It was during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections that a case was registered against Azam Khan, for delivering a provocative hate speech during a rally in the Dhamora area on April 8, 2019.
Last year too, an MP/MLA court had sentenced Khan to three years of imprisonment, in another hate speech case from 2019 itself. Following this, he was disqualified from the Uttar Pradesh State Assembly. But in May this year, a sessions court overturned the verdict of the lower court.
In the last 6 months, this is the third case in which the SP MLA from Rampur has faced conviction. According to reports, as many as 81 cases have been registered against Khan in Rampur on various charges, including land-grabbing, cheating and criminal trespass, ever since the BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017.
