RAMPUR, Oct 18: A court here on Wednesday convicted Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, his wife Tazeen Fatima and son Abdullah Azam in a 2019 fake birth certificate case, and awarded them a seven-year jail term.
“After the court verdict, the trio was taken into judicial custody and will be sent to the jail from the court itself,” said Arun Parkash Saxena, a former District Government Counsel, who represented the prosecution.
MP-MLA court magistrate Shobit Bansal awarded the three the maximum seven-year sentence.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav reacted strongly to the news, saying his party latter was being harassed because he follows a different religion.
“Everyone knows he (Azam Khan) is being harassed because he built a university and comes from a different religion,” Yadav told reporters in Kannauj. A video of the statement was shared by the Samajwadi Party on its ‘X’ handle.
“Azam Khan is being attacked like this continuously. He is being treated like this under a big conspiracy. BJP leaders and some officials brought from outside have been conspiring against him since day one,” Yadav added.
The FIR in the case was lodged by BJP MLA Akash Saxena at the Ganj police station in Rampur on January 3, 2019.
It was alleged that Khan and his wife helped their son obtain two fake birth certificates: one from Lucknow and another from Rampur.
According to the charge sheet, in the certificate issued by the Rampur municipality, Abdullah Azam’s date of birth was mentioned as January 1, 1993.
The other certificate showed he was born in Lucknow on September 30, 1990.
Abullah Azam, who won from the Suar constituency in the 2022 assembly election on a SP ticket, was already convicted by a Moradabad court in a 2008 case of wrongful restraint and assault on a public servant to deter him.
Two days after being convicted and awarded a two-year jail term in February this year, Abdullah Azam was disqualified from the Assembly.
He went to the High Court, seeking a stay of the conviction which was refused.(PTI)
