Shivpal Singh Yadav, the estranged uncle of Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, said the SP and its patriarch -- his brother Mulayam Singh Yadav -- could have done more to get Mohammad Azam Khan out of jail.
Azam Khan is a 10-term MLA, a former MP and the Muslim face of the Samajwadi Party.
“A lot of injustice and cruelty is being meted out to Azam Khan. He is languishing in jail for the past 26 months after several fake cases were registered against him. SP, under Netaji (Mulayam), should have taken up Azam Khan’s case with the prime minister or organised protest over ‘injustice and cruelty meted out to him and the fake cases’ that have kept Khan in prison for the last 26 months,” Shivpal Yadav said.
For the past several weeks after meeting Azam Khan in Sitapur jail, Shivpal Yadav has been campaigning for his. The Rampur MLA has 87 criminal cases against him and has been in jail since February 2020. Eighty-four of the cases have been registered against Azam Khan after the Bharatiya Janata Party won the 2017 UP assembly election, a feat it repeated this year.
SP leader Ravidas Mehrotra, who made an attempt to meet Azam Khan in jail on April 24, said that BJP was trying to create distance between Azam Khan and the SP to wean away Muslims’ support to the party.
“Azam Khan is a big leader but he has been denied B class facilities that an MP/MLA should get in jail,” he said, and added, “Jail officials keep provoking him and asking him why no one from SP comes to meet him,” Mehrotra said, alleging that he was not allowed by the jail officials to meet Azam Khan.
On speculations over his joining hands with Azam Khan after the SP leader’s release from jail, Shivpal Yadav said `there was no such thing as of now. “Azam Khan should come out of the jail first and fake cases against him should be withdrawn. Then, and only then, will there be any talk,” the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) chief said.
The Supreme Court observed on Friday that the delay in hearing Azam Khan’s bail petition was a travesty of justice, and scheduled the next hearing in the case for May 11.
Khan approached the apex court after the Allahabad High Court reserved its order on his bail application.