Lucknow, Sep 12 (IANS): More and more Samajwadi Party (SP) leaders are now coming out in support of beleaguered party MP, Mohd Azam Khan, who has been in jail since February 2020 and has spent almost three months in hospital due to Covid and post Covid complications.

While the SP has not got beyond offering lip service to its leader, individual party workers are now coming forward to support Azam Khan.

A large contingent of SP leaders reached Rampur recently with Ganga Jal from Brij Ghat in Hapur and offered it at the Agapur Shiva temple in Rampur with prayers for the early release of their leader.

SP leader Arjun Singh Yadav, who led the team on a cycle, said: "Mohd Azam Khan is being victimized by the ruling BJP. The cases against him are baseless and a ploy to keep him in jail. Even when his condition was not good, he was discharged from hospital and sent back to jail where his condition worsened. The cases against him, in any case, are mostly frivolous like book theft, goat theft, buffalo theft and statue theft. We demand that he should be released immediately and allowed specialised treatment outside Uttar Pradesh."

Earlier, the alumni of Aligarh Muslim University took out an ‘Insaf March' to seek the release of the SP MP.

Another SP leader from Bulandshahr, Sadaqat Ali Ansari, has written a letter in blood to President Ram Nath Kovind seeking his intervention in ensuring the release of Azam Khan.

According to party sources, with elections now round the corner, the SP leadership is planning to set up a campaign to secure the release of Azam Khan and will use his 'victimisation' as a focal point of their election campaign.

Sources close to Azam Khan, however, said that the family was ‘deeply upset' over the fact that the party did not support them in their hour of crisis.

"We certainly did not get the support we deserved. Would the same have happened if a member of the Yadav family had faced similar victimisation from the government?" asked a family member who did not wish to be identified.

Azam Khan, his wife Tanzeen Fatima and son Abdullah Azam have been in jail on charges of fraud, forgery, theft and encroachment in over 80 cases.

In May this year, Azam Khan and his son Abdullah Azam tested Covid positive and were admitted to Medanta hospital in Lucknow when their condition worsened.

Both were later discharged but Azam Khan was readmitted last month with severe post Covid complications.

He was discharged and sent back to Sitapur jail on Friday evening despite protests by the family that he needed medical attention and should not be sent back to jail.