Senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan’s condition is critical and is now on oxygen support, the Lucknow’s Medanta hospital authority informed on Saturday.
Earlier on Wednesday he had shifted to the intensive care unit (ICU) after his condition deteriorated. The hospital authorities had said that 30-year-old Abdullah is stable and is still being observed by an expert team of doctors.
Azam Khan and his son Mohammad Abdullah Khan tested positive for COVID-19 on April 30 and were admitted to Lucknow’s Medanta Hospital from Sitapur jail on May 9 for Covid treatment. His son Abdullah Khan was also shifted to the same hospital however, his test report came negative.
Azam Khan, along with his son and wife Tazeen Fatma, was lodged in jail in February last year in connection with various cases. The Allahabad High Court had in December granted bail to Tazeen Fatma in all 34 cases registered against her. In March, the Samajwadi Party had taken out a cycle rally to highlight the issue of Khan’s incarceration.
Khan has been lodged in Sitapur jail since February last year with more than a hundred cases registered against him. His son has also been lodged in Sitapur jail in several cases filed against him.
From stopping his pension scheme to acquiring 173 acre land of Jauhar Trust, the Yogi government had acquired 173 acres of land of the Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust, established and run by Azam Khan and his family, in January following an order by the court of additional district magistrate (ADM) J.P. Gupta.
The Yogi Adityanath government had also stopped the Loktantra Senani pension which the Samajwadi Party MP had been receiving since 2005. Khan was jailed during the Emergency in 1975 and had been receiving Rs 20,000 per month after he was categorized as a ‘Loktantra Senani’ by the Mulayam Singh government which had started the pension scheme.