SP fires salvo at Mayawati for getting Azam booked in fake case

Lucknow, Jan 4 (UNI) Unleashing vitriol against the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government in Uttar Pradesh, Principal Opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) today alleged that police had booked senior party leader and former state Urban Development Minister Azam Khan and others in fake cases on the directions of Chief Minister Mayawati.

''Mayawati is working with a malice and hatching a conspiracy to trap SP leaders in fake cases...sadly, the police is also hand-in-glove with the CM,'' UP SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said here this afternoon.

''Since the day, the BSP came to power in May last, almost 11,000 SP leaders had been booked in fake cases. Mayawati is doing this to hide the failures of her regime,'' he charged.

But, this would least affect the party's battle against ''undemocratic, corrupt and anti-people'' policies of the ruling government, the SP leader underlined.

The Moradabad police, while lodging an FIR against Khan for using a red beacon on his car, had yesterday charged him with making inflamatory remarks.

When the former state Parliamentary Affairs minister was fined for using tinted glass and red beacon on his car, he not only refused to sign the challan slip, but also threatened to disturb the law and order situation in UP.

''Mein apni car ko aag laga dunga, jisse pure pradesh mein aag lag jayegi,'' (I will torch my car, which will result in arson across UP), the SSP of Moradabad quoted Khan as saying in a message sent to the DGP office in Lucknow.

The police had also charged him with creating hinderance in official work and disrupting traffic, when his car was stopped for checking in Chajlat area of the district.

Irked over the incident, Khan and his supporters had staged a 'dharna' in front of the Chajlate police station. They ended their protest after senior officials intervened.

Following the terrorist attack on the CRPF camp in Rampur district on January 1, an intensive checking drive had been started.

Meanwhile, senior SP leader Ahmad Hasan had also criticised the police for ''misbehaving'' with Khan. ''It is a conspiracy to maglign the image of the SP leader,'' he had alleged.

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