After 26 months in custody, SP leader Azam Khan walks out of jail

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party veteran Azam Khan stepped out of the Sitapur Jail on Friday morning after spending 26 months in judicial custody, a day after the Supreme Court granted him interim bail in a cheating case. The nine-term MLA was booked in 89 criminal cases after the ruling BJP came to power in 2017.
At the jail gates, Khan had an emotional reunion with sons, Abdullah and Adeeb, apart from SP MLAs Ashu Malik and Mohd Faheem. The four accompanied him in his SUV.
Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L) chief Shivpal Yadav, who had left for Sitapur from his Lucknow residence at 5 am, welcomed Khan at the jail gates and escorted him to his SUV.
Minutes after his release, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav took to Twitter to welcome him. “Hearty welcome to senior SP leader and MLA Azam Khan on his release from jail. This bail order of the Supreme Court has given a new yardstick for justice. Strongly believe he will be acquitted in all remaining false cases and litigations. Lies can last for some moments but not for posterity,” Yadav tweeted in Hindi.
Scores of Khan’s supporters from Moradabad, Sambhal, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bijnor and Rampur had reached Sitapur on Thursday evening and checked into the city hotels leaving limited options for media crews that had descended on the city to cover his release the following morning. Sitapur made elaborate arrangements for Khan’s release and made sure all the SUVs of his supporters were made to his fleet once it hit the highway. However, they were not allowed entry on the city roads leading to Sitapur Jail.
Khan’s motorcade left the jail gates and headed for the residence of former local SP MLA Anup Gupta where the veteran leader had breakfast. Gupta was the first person to have called on Khan when he was lodged at Sitapur Jail after his arrest in February 2020. Half an hour later, he left for Rampur by road.
“When Azam Khan was shifted to Sitapur Jail, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had called me up and asked me to look after him and his family here. I did the best that I could all this while,” Gupta said, talking to the media after Khan left.
Earlier, when Abdullah Azam was released on bail from Sitapur prison in the run-up to the 2022 assembly polls, he had also stopped at Gupta's residence before heading for Rampur.
The jailor of Sitapur prison, R S Yadav, said the release order was received around 11 pm on Thursday and after following all procedures, Khan was let off at 8 on Friday morning.