Prayagraj: On Friday, the Allahabad High Court will consider a hate speech case involving Azam Khan, a former minister from Uttar Pradesh and leader of the Samajwadi Party (SP).

Controversies and court issues are nothing new to Azam Khan. Azam Khan and seven other people were cleared on Thursday by an MP-MLA court here in March of this year in one of the charges pertaining to the Dungarpur tragedy.

According to Nasir Sultan, Azam Khan’s attorney, Additional Session Judge Vivek Kumar of the MP-MLA court cleared Azam and seven other defendants due to a lack of proof.

In the 2016 Dungarpur incident, when homes were destroyed to make way for the Asara program to be implemented under the SP administration, almost a dozen formal complaints were filed against Azam and others. Speaking to reporters, he said, “Shafeeq Bano filed one of the cases in 2019, claiming that she built a house on the property she had bought in 2012.”

In the meanwhile, the Allahabad High Court will consider a case involving former Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan as well as a plea submitted by Zainab, the wife of mobster Ashraf Ahmed.

Gangster Ashraf Ahmed and his brother, Atiq Ahmed, a former mafia member who became a politician, were shot dead by gunmen on April 15, 2024, when they were speaking to the media.

In the Umesh Pal murder case that occurred in Prayagraj in February 2023, Ashraf Ahmed’s wife Zainab Fatima and her sister-in-law, Ayesha Noori, are major suspects.

On February 24 of last year, one of Atiq’s sons and goons in Prayagraj fired at Umesh Pal, a crucial witness to the 2005 murder of Raju Pal, a BSP MLA at the time. That day, Pal’s two police officers were also slain. The primary suspect in Umesh Pal’s murder was gangster Atiq Ahmed.