Jailed Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan has accused the opposition bloc INDIA leadership of ignoring the interests of Muslims, particularly those in Rampur, in Parliament.

Azam Khan is the former MLA and also a former MP from Rampur. He urged the Samajwadi Party to raise the issue of atrocities against Muslims in Rampur in Parliament as strongly as the Sambhal violence.

Azam Khan also asked the INDIA bloc to clarify its stance on the Muslims of Rampur. His statement was released on the official letterhead of Rampur’s SP district president Ajay Sagar.

Azam’s statement comes days after SP chief Akhilesh Yadav raised the issue of police firing in Sambhal in Parliament.

The SP leadership is already said to be unhappy with its ally and INDIA bloc partner Congress for not backing it in Parliament on the Sambhal issue.

“Samajwadi Party should raise the issue of atrocities on Muslims in Rampur as assertively as they did on Sambhal violence, which was a repeat of the template that was first successfully experimented in Rampur,” Azam said from his jail cell.

“The INDIA bloc has stood as a mute spectator to the destruction in Rampur and has seen the Muslim leadership being destroyed. The INDIA bloc will have to clarify its stance on the issue, else one will be compelled to think about the status and future of Muslims,” read the statement of Azam, a tall Muslim leader and co-founder of the Samajwadi Party. He has mostly been in jail since his arrest in February 2020 in a case related to a fake birth certificate for his son Abdullah.

“Clarify your position and policy on the attacks on Muslims and their present status. If Muslim votes do not mean anything and their right to vote is resulting in their genocide, then they will be compelled to examine whether their right to vote should exist or not,” Azam said in the written statement.

Azam, 76, is lodged in Sitapur jail. He has been convicted in six criminal cases in the past 18 months. He has over 70 criminal cases pending against him, most of which were lodged after the BJP came to office in UP in 2017.

Having represented Rampur 10 times in the state assembly and three times in Parliament, Azam Khan and his family were absent from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
With no one from the Khan family in the fray, SP fielded Mohibullah Nadvi – the Imam of the mosque on Parliament Street – as the party’s candidate. Mohibullah won the election.