Lucknow, Sept. 9 -- The state government on Monday issued an office order appointing Mohsin Raza as chairman of the UP Minority Commission along with eight other members. The governor made the appointments under the powers conferred by Section 3 and Section 4(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Minority Commission Act, 1994 (as amended in 2013). The nominated individuals will hold office for three years. According to the order issued by the minority welfare department, Mohsin Raza was named chairman, and eight others were named as members. The members include Sandeep Jain (Etah), Anshuman Kumar Singh Maithy (Lodhipur, Shahjahanpur), Sardar Hanpreet Singh Bedi (Muzaffarnagar), Mohammad Aslam (Fatehpur) Sardar Parvinder Singh (Lucknow), Neha Khan (Akbarpur, Ambedkar Nagar), Syed Siraj Abbas Rizvi (Azamgarh) and Rumana Siddiqui (Lucknow). Mohsin Raza, a long-time BJP leader, previously served as a Member of the UP Legislative Council (MLC) and as the minister of state in the first Yogi Adityanath government (2017). His portfolios included minority welfare, Muslim Waqf, and Haj. The posts of chairman and members in the State Minority Commission had been vacant since the previous commission's term ended in June 2024. For more than two years the statutory body remained non-functional, leaving over 1,800 complaints pending - many related to issues faced by minority communities involving police and administrative authorities. htc...