A special court in Rampur on Wednesday sentenced senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and former MP Azam Khan, his wife Tanzeen Fatima and son Abdullah Azam Khan to seven years of imprisonment in connection with a four-year-old case related to the alleged forgery of Abdullah’s birth certificate. 

“All three — Azam Khan, Tanzeen Fatima and Abdullah Azam Khan – who were out on bail have been sent to jail,” said Prosecuting Officer (Rampur) Amar Tiwari. The MP-MLA court magistrate Shobit Bansal awarded the three the maximum seven-year sentence. 

The three have been convicted under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged 1[document or electronic record]) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy), said Special Public Prosecutor, Rampur, Shiv Prakash Pandey. In all, 15 prosecution witnesses were examined by the court, while the defence produced 19 witnesses, he added. 

Speaking to the media before being taken into custody, Azam Khan said, “There is a difference between justice and verdict. A verdict has been announced. Since yesterday everyone in the town knew. Small channels of yours were telling the quantum of the sentence. What should I say more than this… You must have seen the copy of the judgment. I came to know about it today.” 

This is the fourth case in the past year in which Azam Khan has been convicted, and the second conviction of his son and former MLA Abdullah Azam Khan. Azam Khan’s counsel, Nasir Sultan, said they would file an appeal against the judgment in the higher court. 

Reacting strongly to the conviction, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav said his party leader was being harassed for being a Muslim. 

In a post on X, Akhilesh wrote, “The public is watching and understanding the game that is being played to scare an entire section of society by targeting Azam Khan-ji and his family. Some selfish people do not want people who promote education to remain active in society… The oppressors should remember (that) the public also has a court against injustice.” 

According to the prosecution, the case dates back to January 3, 2019, when resident Akash Saxena, who is now the BJP MLA from Rampur, got a police case registered alleging that Azam Khan and his wife Tanzeen Fatima got two birth certificates made for their son Abdullah Azam Khan. 

“They got two birth certificates issued for Abdullah, one on June 28, 2012, from Rampur municipality. In this, his place of birth is shown as Rampur and it was issued based on an oath letter by Tanzeen Fatima and Azam Khan. The second one was issued on January 21, 2015, by the Lucknow municipality. Here, Abdullah’s birthplace is marked as Lucknow. It was issued based on a certificate given by Mary Hospital in Lucknow,” said the prosecution officer. 

Abdullah is accused of using the first birth certificate to get a passport and for travelling abroad, while the second one was used for government records and for getting affiliation with Jauhar University. 

Image Source: India Today