Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Mohammad Azam Khan was on Sunday sent to 14 days of judicial custody a day after being arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a Jauhar University-linked money laundering case.

The order was passed by the Ghaziabad MP-MLA Court, which directed that Khan will remain in judicial custody until November 13.

Speaking to reporters, the SP leaders’ lawyer, Danish Ali, said: “Today, Azam Khan has been remanded to judicial custody. We argued that since this is a 2019 case, the authorities could have taken action through a B-Warrant when he was already in custody. There has also been a violation of Section 19.”

“The ED has sought his custody to further interrogate him,” he added.

The Samajwadi Party leader’s arrest by the ED on Saturday came close to the provisional attachment of land and buildings belonging to Mohammad Ali Jauhar University in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur district, valued at Rs 426.46 crore, in connection with the money laundering probe involving the Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust, Azam Khan, and others.

The fresh trouble for Azam Khan came in the backdrop of a short-lived relief offered to him and his son Abdullah Khan by the Allahabad High Court, which suspended their sentence in the dual PAN card case and also granted them bail on Thursday.

In the money laundering case, the ED attached assets of the University that have a current estimated market value of around Rs 1,170 crore.

The university campus, located at Jauhar Nagar in Rampur’s Singhankhera village, is owned by the Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust, which was founded and is controlled by Azam Khan, who also serves as the institution’s honorary Chancellor, said the ED.

The investigation stems from 26 FIRs registered at Azeem Nagar police station in Rampur, alleging that agricultural land belonging to farmers was forcibly acquired for the university.

The ED said enquiries by the district administration also found that nearly 34 acres of enemy property at Singhankhera village had allegedly been occupied for the university despite the cancellation of the land lease. The land has since been recovered by the Custodian of Enemy Property through the district administration.

US President Donald Trump on Saturday named Pickaxe Mountain as an Iranian site that needed to be dealt with, while saying negotiations with Tehran were progressing and leaving open whether diplomacy would produce an agreement.

Speaking to reporters in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump said there were still one or two sites to address. His remarks came hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the president had not decided whether to launch fresh military action against Iran.

“You probably could look at Pickaxe Mountain, and you have to take care of that,” Trump said.

The president described the Iran negotiations as “going fine”, but questioned Tehran’s reliability.

“We’ll see if they make a deal,” he said.

Trump also suggested that dealing with the remaining sites could be accomplished rapidly.

Earlier in Atlanta, Rubio declined to discuss possible military operations or say how long diplomatic efforts would be given to succeed. He said decisions on timing rested with Trump.

“We can achieve military objectives if we seek to. He hasn’t made a decision. I have no announcement in that regard with you today, and nor do we take any of it lightly,” Rubio told reporters at the conclusion of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting.

Rubio said Trump preferred a diplomatic outcome and would already have acted if military force had been his preferred course.

“He’d prefer to solve it diplomatically,” he said.

Asked about Qatari-backed talks, Rubio said contacts with Iran had continued through several channels, including intermediaries and, in some cases, direct conversations. He declined to assess their progress or specify a deadline.

“There are multiple talks; talks have actually never stopped,” he said.

Rubio said Washington remained open to a diplomatic solution, but any arrangement would have to address US security concerns. He identified preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and confronting its support for armed groups across the Middle East as central American objectives.

The secretary also linked the confrontation to commercial shipping, accusing Iran of targeting vessels carrying energy supplies and other cargo. He specifically referred to ships with Indian sailors aboard.

Those allegations were made by Rubio during the press conference. The material reviewed for this report did not include an Iranian response.

Rubio said US forces were defending shipping against drones and missiles and called for wider international participation in protecting passage through the Strait of Hormuz. He described cooperation from other countries as limited and said the burden had fallen primarily on the United States.

The Atlanta meeting formed part of preparations for the G20 leaders’ summit in Florida in December. Its agenda included energy, supply chains, critical minerals, food security and freedom of navigation, reflecting the economic consequences of disruptions to international commerce.

Maritime security was a recurring subject in the discussions. Rubio said interruptions to the movement of energy, fertiliser and agricultural products threatened food supplies, while acknowledging that participants agreed more readily on the problems than on collective solutions.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Nitin Nabin on Sunday accused the Congress of wanting to run democracy “according to the law of the Gandhi family”, as he called it out for undertaking a protest rally in the national capital, instead of apologising to the Sikhs for the 1984 riots.

Nabin’s remarks came at the BJP’s ”Loktantra Bachao, Arajakta Hatao’ rally in Haryana’s Rohtak. He was referring to the INDIA bloc’s ‘Dilli Chalo’ rally, currently underway at the national capital’s Ramlila Maidan.

Addressing the gathering, the BJP chief claimed that an atmosphere of chaos and instability is being “deliberately spread” throughout the nation and accused the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, of acting at the behest of foreign powers and “serving as a tool for their agendas”.

“He (Gandhi) seeks to challenge our nation’s democracy based on the directives of these foreign entities…Their associates, members of the Communist Party and certain Congress leaders, talk about ‘regime change’. But this government is formed by the mandate of the people; no one can even lay a finger on it,” Nabin asserted.

He said that the Congress ought to have sought “atonement” for the “massacre” of the Sikhs and should have offered an apology.

“Yet, today, they have taken to the streets to protest. I ask, on behalf of the people in this democracy, Rahul Gandhi, when our Sikh brothers were being slaughtered, when a full-scale massacre was unfolding, your father (Rajiv Gandhi) remarked that ‘when a big tree falls, the earth shakes.’ Because of that (statement), the lives of so many of our Sikh brothers were lost. You should have felt remorse for this; you should have apologised, but instead you are carrying out protests,” he remarked.

According to the BJP chief, the Congress is “frustrated” and “blaming” Constitutional institutions since the party did not receive the people’s mandate to govern.

“If Congress leaders had the courage, they would first end Rahul Gandhi’s dynastic rule within the party and establish democracy in the Congress; instead the party leaders believe that even the country’s law should be made according to Rahul Gandhi and his family,” he alleged.

Referring to the Allahabad High Court’s 1975 decision to set aside then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s election for misusing government machinery and barring her from contesting elections for six years, Nabin said: “This is the Congress’ legacy of stealing votes and disrespecting the people’s mandate.”

He also addressed the Opposition’s claims that 13 crore votes have been deleted, saying: “Any worker from our party, the NDA, or even one of our local unit Presidents can provide a detailed account for every single one of those 13 crore deleted votes.”

Accusing the Opposition of fighting to “protect” infiltrators, Nabin said: “I declare that as long as the workers of the BJP and the NDA are here, they will ensure these infiltrators are driven out of the country. Under no circumstances will these infiltrators be granted any rights.”

“It has become clear that you wish to run the democracy according to the ‘law’ of the Gandhi family. But a democracy must be governed by the nation’s Constitution, which is worshipped by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. PM Modi has always upheld the democracy of this nation,” the BJP chief stated.