After Samajwadi Party MP Mohammad Azam Khan’s legislator son Abdullah Azam, it was the turn of the parliamentarian’s wife and Rajya Sabha member Tanzeem Fatima to defend him and attack the Uttar Pradesh government.
On Saturday, Fatima flayed the UP government for raiding Jauhar University in search of 2,500 stolen books without permission and said that the move was a conspiracy to “defame” Azam Khan.
Fatima also alleged that the farmers were threatened and forced by Rampur district administration to file complaints against her husband.
“The accusations on Jauhar University and my husband are totally baseless. No permission was taken from the university officials for carrying out the raid. The ‘recovered’ books, which are said to be stolen, were brought in cartons and jute sacks in vehicles by the police and planted at the Jauhar University. That is why even the media was not allowed in the library during the raids,” Tanzeem Fatima said.
The SP Rajya Sabha member further claimed that Rs 6 lakh cash, kept in an almirah at the Chancellor’s office, was missing since the raid. “Money meant for zakat (charity) was taken away by police officials. The lock of Chancellor’s office was also broken,” she alleged.
Fatima further alleged, “The Rampur police and district administration are on a mission to malign Azam Khan’s image at the behest of the state government.”
Joint raids were conducted by police and district administration officials at Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan’s Mohammad Ali Jauhar University in Rampur on Wednesday and 250- year-old books stolen from Madarasa Aliya in Rampur were recovered recently.
The search for books continued and when Khan’s son Abdullah Azam tried to intervene, he was taken into custody for some time.
The team was probing a case related to the theft of several ancient books from the ancient Madarasa Aliya in Rampur on June 16.
Principal of Oriental College in Rampur (Madarasa Aliya), Zubair Khan, had lodged an FIR, alleging that 9,000 books were stolen and taken to the library of Jauhar University.