The Income Tax Department has carried out raids on former minister and senior Samajwadi Party leader Mohammad Azam Khan at multiple locations here on Wednesday morning.

An IT team is searching for clues about the irregularities committed in the Jauhar Trust headed by Khan since morning in Rampur, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Saharanpur, Sitapur and Lucknow.

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Sources said IT teams raided the house of the manager of the Regency Public School, which is close to Azam, in Sitapur. An Income Tax raid was also conducted at the house of SP MLA Naseer Khan in Rampur.

IT officials have also raided Azam’s Humsafar Resort. Similarly, in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, the IT Department team raided the residence of the late Chaudhary Munawwar Salim, former Rajya Sabha MP from the Samajwadi Party, living in the Bada Bazaar area.

An IT team also raided the residence of Ekta Kaushik, close to Azam Khan’s son Adeeb, in Rajnagar Sector 9. In Ghaziabad too. The raid was conducted by a team of five officers in the presence of police. The Income Tax Department team has locked Ekta Kaushik’s house from inside and no one is allowed to come in or out.

The raid was underway till late afternoon. However, IT officials refused to divulge details about the raids to media persons.

Meanwhile,  SP President Akhilesh Yadav has strongly objected to the raids. Through social media posts, he said, “The weaker the government becomes, the more raids on the Opposition will increase.”

The Samajwadi Party also commented on the roads through a social media post. “Azam Khan Saheb is the voice of truth. He laid the foundation for a better future for children and built a university for education. Azam Saheb has always been fighting against communal forces. Today we all stand united with his voice. BJP government should stop dictatorship and misuse of central agencies. BJP should remember that the ego of dictators definitely ends, the public will answer in 2024.”

Six months ago, the Income Tax Department started a re-examination of the income tax affidavits of the former minister, wife Tanzin Fatima, and son Abdullah Azam. Many irregularities were found in the affidavit filed by Azam Khan and his son Abdullah Azam during the assembly elections.

At the same time, many irregularities were revealed in the bank accounts of Tanzin Fatima during the investigation and many suspicious transactions were detected in these accounts as well as many suspicious transactions from Johar Trust were also detected.

The Income Tax Department and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) have been thoroughly investigating Azam Khan, his family members and the Jauhar Trust for the past three years. The investigation was ordered in the year 2019.

Khan was accused of benami property and tax irregularities by BJP MLA Akash Saxena in the year 2019. He had complained about this to the Union Home Ministry and submitted the documents. In view of the entire matter, the Central Ministry had ordered an investigation by the ED.

The allegation was that after the formation of the Samajwadi Party government in 2012, Azam Khan started the construction work of Jauhar University on 560 acres of land. There were charges of misuse of government funds and grabbing of  government lands in violation of the rules and laws.

Apart from this, he was accused of forcibly transferring land of poor farmers and Scheduled Caste people to his name.

Azam Khan was also accused of trying to convert black money into white by taking crores of rupees as donations from contractors and industrialists. It has also been said in the complaint that no cess and no tax of any kind has been deposited under the construction of the building located in Johar University.