Azam Khan gets interim bail for hate speech

Rampur (UP): In a major relief, Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and former MLA Mohammad Azam Khan on Wednesday got interim bail from the district court in a hate speech case in which he had been convicted for three years, defence counsel Vinod Sharma said.
Sharma said Azam had moved the district court against the lower court order, and District Judge Aanchal Sachdev granted him interim bail. Azam was present in the court during the hearing.
The court has fixed November 16 as the next date of the hearing.
On October 27, an MP-MLA court in Rampur held Azam Khan guilty of giving a provocative speech against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then District Magistrate of Rampur and sentenced him to three years imprisonment along with a penalty of Rs 8,000.
The MP-MLA court of ACJM-First Nishant Man later granted bail to Azam and gave him one week time to appeal in the higher court.
Azam was accused of making indecent comments against Modi and the then District Magistrate during an election rally in Milak during the Lok Sabha polls. Agriculture Development Officer Anil Kumar Chauhan had lodged an FIR against Azam in 2019.
After being convicted, Azam Khan was disqualified from the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. (UNI)