Wajahat Khan (Sharmishta Panoli Case) Age, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Wajahat Khan

• Wajahat Khan works as the general secretary of the Rashidi Foundation based in Kolkata.

• In May 2025, he came into the limelight when he filed a complaint against Sharmishta Panoli, a social media influencer and a law student, through this foundation.

  

  FIR registered against Sharmishta Panoli

  

  Complaint registered by Wajahat Khan against Sharmishta Panoli

• Wajahat Khan was in the news after his complaint led to the arrest of Sharmishta Panoli.

• He accused Sharmishta Panoli of sharing a video that he said contained hate speech and hurt religious feelings.

• Sharmishta Panoli was then arrested in Gurugram, taken to Kolkata, and sent to 14 days of judicial custody. Her arrest caused political backlash, and some BJP leaders demanded her release.

  

  Sharmishta Panoli (wearing a black mask) after being arrested by the police

• In June 2025, a group called the Shri Ram Swabhiman Parishad, a charitable trust, filed a complaint against Wajahat Khan at Garden Reach Police Station in Kolkata, where Khan had earlier filed his complaint against Panoli.

• In its complaint, the trust said that he posted offensive and inflammatory content on social media. He used insulting terms like “rapist cultures” and “urine drinkers” to describe Hindus.

• They also claimed that the posts were meant to target the Hindu community, its sacred beliefs, festivals, traditions, and gods.

• The trust accused Wajahat Khan of using offensive and sexually vulgar words against Hindu scriptures and deities like Lord Krishna.

• After that, Kolkata Police filed a case against him after receiving several complaints.

• On 4 June 2025, Wajahat Khan went missing, according to his father, Saadat Khan.

• His family claimed that they were receiving threatening phone calls after Panoli’s arrest, and Wajahat Khan was disturbed by abusive and threatening calls, with people blaming him for Panoli’s arrest. His father said,
  

  Wajahat Khan was getting calls from different numbers every five minutes. They abused him and said that he had trapped Panoli. Three people have even called me. He went into depression.”

  

  An old picture of Wajahat Khan

• His father claimed that Khan’s social media accounts might have been hacked.

• After Kolkata Police filed a case, Assam Police also reached Wajahat Khan’s home in Kolkata to arrest him for hate speech and hurting religious sentiments.

• Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma confirmed the case and said that police would request the West Bengal government to hand over Khan.

• During the same time, an advocate named Vineet Jindal filed a third complaint in Delhi against Wajahat Khan and accused him of hate speech and religious defamation.

• Wajahat Khan, who first filed a complaint against Sharmishta Panoli, faced multiple FIRs and public backlash in June 2025.