This story is from October 18, 2019

After bhoo-mafia tag, Azam Khan fights tough battle for wife

After bhoo-mafia tag, Azam Khan fights tough battle for wife
Samajwadi Party leader and MP Azam Khan.
LUCKNOW: He has been tagged “bhoo-mafia” (land mafia) and buffalo and goat thief. He has been named in a slew of criminal cases too.
kriminal

The crackdown on Samajwadi Party senior leader and MP Azam Khan has turned the bypoll in Rampur into a high voltage battle.
The bypoll in Rampur will take place on October 21 as the seat was vacated by Azam after he was elected to Lok Sabha earlier this year.

As the alleged illegal construction in possession of Azam Khan and his family members have been bulldozed and razed to the ground in Rampur and the police have slapped cases of goat and buffalo theft against him, Azam Khan — who was a powerful minister in the Akhilesh Yadav government — has cried four times in the last one week and with teary eyes, lamented: “Why am I alive to see this day, when the police declared me a buffalo and goat thief.”

Cases have been slapped on many of his family members, his wife who is the candidate in the bypolls and his MLA son. Gates of Azam’s haveli has been plastered with dozens of notices and summons to appear before SIT, police and the ED.
But the forthcoming byelection to be held on October 21 , will be the test of the Yogi government — whether it will be able to demolish Azam Khan politically. SP has fielded Tazeem Fatima, wife of Azam Khan, as the party candidate who is being challenged by the ruling BJP, Congress and the BSP. She is also party’s Rajya Sabha member while Khan is MP from Rampur.
Rampur seat has been an impregnable fort of Azam in literal sense as no one has been able to defeat him in the last nine elections. At the same time, the Khans never faced so much of crackdown in the past.
On the day of nomination, when he was to accompany his wife to the returning officer to file her nomination papers, SIT summoned him, and the day he was to address a big public meeting, he was again whisked away by other investigating agencies denying him to speak at the rally.
He even broke down at a public meeting, saying: “Akhir meri khata kya hai” (after all, what is my fault?).
He has been slapped with 84 criminal cases, unheard of in the past. Police have even lodged criminal cases against some of the dead members of Khan’s family and later corrected it. The BJP has deployed a battery of leaders and ministers to campaign in Rampur, looking for a win. The Rampur Assembly constituency has more than 52% Muslims and 17% Dalits.
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