In a shocking revelation, senior journalist and political commentator Pushpendra Kulshreshtha has alleged that senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, Azam Khan was involved in attacking the Army troops leaving for border areas from Rampur cantonment during the 1965 Indo-Pak war. Kulshreshtha said this while speaking at an event organised in Amity Law School in Lucknow in February this year.
https://youtu.be/lZ2velRMY_U?t=659
Kulshreshtha who is an alumnus of Aligarh Muslim University like Azam Khan, said that during the 1965 Indo-Pak War, troops of Army were leaving from Rampur cantonment to join the forces on the border areas. He added that Azam Khan, who was a college student in Rampur at that time, made a group of around 50 people and attacked the troops leaving for the frontline with stones and dug pits in the roads to hinder the movement of the troops.
He further said that Azam Khan was beaten up because of his involvement in the attack on the Army troops and was admitted to a hospital after his arrest. In the hospital, Azam Khan was ordered by the then IB officer in the area to leave the city, after which he went to Aligarh and got himself admitted in the Aligarh Muslim University. And later he even went on to become a Minister, Kulshreshtha added.
Giving the example of Subash Chandra Bose and Veer Savarkar, Kulshreshtha said that the present generation was not told about these two personalities and that after independence, some portions of history were deliberately brushed under the carpet or distorted to keep people in dark.
Last year a criminal complaint was filed against Azam Khan after he made certain remarks against the Army that suggested that the Indian soldiers indulged in rapes. He was also accused by former SP leader and BJP Lok Sabha candidate from Rampur, Jaya Prada, of planning an acid attack on her.