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‘Secret rooms’ built to hide stolen books at Jauhar university: Police
The university is run by a trust headed by former minister and senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan in Rampur district.
Police found 42 wooden almirahs, kept in ‘secret rooms’, concealed behind a wall on the premises of Mohammad Ali Jauhar University in Rampur on Wednesday, a day after authorities found rare books and manuscripts stolen from Raza Oriental College (Madrasa Alia) three years ago from under the lift of the university building.
The university is run by a trust headed by former minister and senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan in Rampur district.
Rampur additional superintendent of police (ASP) Sansar Singh said 42 wooden almirahs used to store the rare books and manuscripts were recovered, based on statements by two employees of the university—Salahuddin and Parvez—who also claimed to be close aides of Khan.
He said the two employees were taken into custody after their names surfaced during the interrogation of two aides of Khan’s son Abdullah Azam – identified as Salim and Anwar. Salim and Anwar were arrested on Saturday for their involvement in gambling after a video of theirs went viral on social media.
On July 15, 2019, an FIR was lodged regarding the theft of books by the principal of Raza Oriental College, Zubair Ahmad, stating that then cabinet minister Mohd Azam Khan forcibly occupied the college building in 2016, after which 10,633 rare books and manuscripts in the college library went missing, said the police.
On Tuesday, police found books allegedly stolen from Raza Oriental College while digging underneath a lift. They also found a cleaning machine of the local corporation buried near the medical college of the university. The machine was reported missing seven years ago, the police added. Hundreds of books were found buried in the shaft under the wall, said Singh.
Raza Oriental College (Madrasa Alia) was established by the Nawab of Rampur in 1774. The recovery was made on the information provided by the two aides of Abdullah Azam, said police. Khan is the MLA from Rampur while his son Abdullah Azam is MLA from the Swar assembly in Rampur district.
District police lodged a fresh FIR against the current chairman of Rampur municipal council, Fatma Zavi, and clerks Azim Shanu, Akhlaq Ahmad and Junaid Khan for allegedly trying to burn documents related to the budget allocation and purchase of road cleaning machine that was recovered in a dismantled state during the diggings on the university premises.
The police official said the machine was bought in 2013 and was missing for the past seven years after it was taken to the university once.
Police said added several burnt and semi-burnt documents were recovered on Tuesday after which Akhlaq Ahmad and Junaid Khan were arrested while Fatma Zavi and Azim Shanu were still absconding.
On July 15, 2019, an FIR was lodged regarding the theft of books by the principal of Raza Oriental College, Zubair Ahmad, stating that then cabinet minister Azam Khan forcibly occupied the college building in 2016, after which 10,633 rare books and manuscripts in the college library went missing, said the police.
The principal alleged that the books were taken to the library in Jauhar Ali University, run by Khan. Later, around 2,500 books were recovered from the Mumtaz library of Jauhar Ali University on July 31, 2019 and four people were arrested.
On Monday, activist Waqar Ali Khan lodged a separate FIR against seven people, including the university chancellor and former minister Khan, his son Abdullah Azam, Anwar Hussain, Salim Ali, former municipal council chairman Azhar Khan, Sultan Mohammed Khan and university employee Talib after the recovery of the dismantled road cleaning machine.
In the FIR, he mentioned that the machine was bought by the municipal council during the Samajwadi Party regime before March, 2017 and the former minister, with help of other accused, fraudulently took it away for university work and that it was missing since then.
