Rampur (UP): Senior leader of Samajwadi Party Azam Khan, who has been disqualified from membership in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly after his conviction in a 2019 hate speech case, on Saturday said he fears being assassinated like gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed.

"What do you want from me and my children? Do you want someone to come and shoot us in head? That's all that is left..., save Nizam-e-Hind, save the law, you don't have to offer anything, you just have to encourage yourself. Sit wherever you get stopped and try to move forward instead of stepping back," the SP leader was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Azam Khan was campaigning for Samajwadi Party candidate Fatima Zabi, contesting for the presidential post of Rampur municipality.

As he attacked the BJP-led governments at the Centre and the state he ended up calling his political opponents as "political eunuchs."

"We will cast our vote, it's our birthright but that too is being snatched from us twice, if it gets snatched thrice then you won't even to the right to breathe," he said, according to ANI while referring to his disqualification from UP Assembly after a court sentenced him to three years in jail in a hate speech case.

Azam Khan, who was elected as an MLA from the Rampur Sadar constituency, was disqualified from the House by the state Assembly Secretariat in October.

This was after he was sentenced to three years in jail in a hate speech case.

The case was registered against him in April 2019 for making serious allegations against Rampur administrative officials as well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath during an election meeting.

Atiq Ahmad (60) and his brother Ashraf, both incarcerated in connection with Umesh Pal murder case, were shot dead on April 15 by three men posing as journalists in close range while being taken for medical examination to Prayagraj’s Colvin Medical College and Hospital in police custody.

The shooting had occurred hours later the last rites of Ahmad's son Asad, who was gunned down in a police encounter in Jhansi on April 13, were performed here.