New Delhi: Pakistani-origin former British politician Lord Nazir Ahmed was sentenced to five-and-a half-years in jail by a UK court after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting two people in the 1970s, who were minors at the time.

Born in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Ahmed has been very vocal for the “Kashmir cause” and has previously criticised the scrapping of special status for J&K as an “occupation force” for “demographic changes to settle BJP/RSS extremists”.

In the past, he has been condemned by both Congress and BJP leaders for his tweet on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The court convicted Ahmed in January. Justice Lavender of the Sheffield Crown Court told Ahmed, “Your actions have had profound and lifelong effects on the girl and the boy, who have lived with what you did to them for between 46 and 53 years.”

The charges include “serious sexual assault” against a boy who was aged 11 at the time, and two attempts to rape a 16-year-old girl. Both instances took place in the 1970s.

Ahmed’s victims, who sat through the trial in court, are asking that he be stripped of his title. Ahmed quit the House of Lords but continues to retain the title of ‘Lord’ before his name.

“I’m happy in that he got a lengthy custodial sentence, but not happy he is still called a lord and everything that goes with it,” said the male victim, adding, “It cannot be right that people are still referring to him honourable Lord Ahmed — he’s a paedophile, there is nothing honourable about that at all.”

The woman victim read out her own statement, saying, “An overwhelming feeling of shame remained with me throughout my childhood and early adult years. It was a burden I was made to carry, and it silenced me for many years. It is now time for me to pass that burden to him — the paedophile who I know feels no personal shame.”

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Cases of sexual assault

Ahmed’s two brothers, Mohammed Farouq, 71, and Mohammed Tariq, 66, were also charged with indecent assault of the same boy Ahmed had abused, according to news reports.

The incident took place in Rotherham between 1971 and 1972, when Ahmed was around 14 or 15 years old, according to The Crown Prosecution Service. His brother Farouq was 20.

The court deemed Ahmed’s brothers unfit for trial.

The two counts of attempted rape were said to have occurred when the boy was 16 or 17 years old, in 1973-74. The girl was also around 16 years of age.

During the trial, the jury was made to listen to a phone call between the two victims, after the woman went to the police in 2016.

Lord Ahmed’s political career

Ahmed quit the House after a committee formed by the House of Lords found him guilty of sexually and emotionally harassing a vulnerable woman who sought his help. The committee had recommended him for expulsion, but he resigned upon reading the contents of the committee’s report.

He moved to the UK in 1969. He joined the Labour party when he was 18 (in 1975), and rose to become Rotherham’s first Asian councilor and later the youngest magistrate.

He was appointed a peer — a member of the House of Lords — in 1998 by former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

He is married with three children.

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