By: RadhakrishnaNS
LORD NAZIR AHMED, who made history in 1998 by becoming the first Muslim to be appointed a peer in Britain’s House of Lords, has announced his retirement.
On Tuesday(17), the House of Lords Conduct Committee published a report on the conduct of Lord Ahmed.
In 2019, he was accused of two counts of attempting to rape a girl and indecent assault of a boy under 13.
The Conduct Committee chaired by Lord Mance and includes four external members dismissed Lord Ahmed’s appeal against the finding of breaches of the Code of Conduct and the recommend sanction of expulsion from the House.
“Lord Ahmed resigned from the House of Lords on 14 November but the report, which was agreed by the Committee and seen by Lord Ahmed before that date, recommends that he should have been expelled,” a statement from the UK Parliament said.
The Lord Speaker on Monday announced in the UK Parliament that Lord Nazir has retired at the start of business on November 16, 2020.
In 2020, Lord Ahmed and two of his bothers were charged with sexual assault on minors in the 1970s. The BBC reported in April, “Nazir Ahmed – serious sexual assault against a boy under the age of 11 and the indecent assault of the same boy; two counts of attempting to rape a girl who was under the age of 16. All charges relate to dates between 1971 and 1974.”
Lord Ahmed has been a consistent critic of the Indian government’s policies, particularly with reference to Jammu and Kashmir. He has also been a supporter of Khalistani groups.
During Republic Day in 2018, Lord Ahmed organised a protest outside the Indian High Commission in London to highlight the claim that minorities in India were not safe. Clashes erupted over the protest, which called for an independent Kashmir and Khalistan.
He had served as the head of the UK Parliament’s All-Party Parliamentary Kashmir Group, a body that supports “right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people…”
Following the abrogation of Article 370, Nazir Ahmed alleged India was an “occupation force” in Jammu and Kashmir that aimed to pursue “demographic changes to settle BJP/RSS extremists” in the state.
Lord Ahmed was convicted and jailed in 2009 for a reckless driving accident. Nazir Ahmed had sent text messages while driving his Jaguar car, which crashed into a stationary car on the M1 highway, killing its driver.
He was born in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and migrated to the UK as a child.
