Income Tax (I-T) department raid at senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Azam Khan’s residence in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur continued for the third day on Friday.

The I-T department on Wednesday conducted searches at over 30 locations in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh as part of its tax evasion probe against Azam Khan and people associated with him, ANI reported.

Teams of I-T personnel on Wednesday reached cities including Rampur, Meerut, Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Saharanpur and Sitapur to raid multiple premises linked to the SP leader.

Also Read: Azam Khan acquitted by UP court in 2019 hate speech case

Searches were conducted on Thursday too at Khan’s residence in Rampur.

Hate speech case

Azam Khan was elected an MLA from the Rampur Sadar constituency. The State Assembly Secretariat, earlier in October, announced Khan’s disqualification from the House after a court sentenced him to three years in jail in a hate speech case.

The case was registered against Khan in April 2019 for levelling serious allegations against administrative officials posted in Rampur, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath during an election meeting.

Furthermore, during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Khan was also booked for making inflammatory speeches while addressing a public meeting in Khatanagaria village of the Milak Kotwali area.

Also Read: Azam Khan gets two-year jail in another case of hate speech

Earlier, Allahabad High Court in May 2022 had granted interim bail to Azam Khan in a matter which was related to a wrongful possession of Waqf Board property land.

Then in July, Khan was sentenced to two years in prison in a hate speech case registered in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Since the BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017, as many as 81 cases have been registered against Khan in Rampur on various charges, including land-grabbing, cheating and criminal trespass. He has been convicted in three separate cases so far.

His wife and son were also booked in some of these cases. All three are currently out on bail.

(With inputs from ANI)