Srinagar, Sept 10: Aijaz Ahmad Guru, elder brother of the 2011 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, has announced his candidacy as an independent for the Sopore assembly seat in the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir elections.
A former animal husbandry department employee, Aijaz, now a contractor, will formally submit his nomination this week.
Aijaz, 58, said that his decision to contest stems from the arrest of his son, Shoaib Aijaz Guru, under what he calls “fabricated charges” by Police.
His son has been held in Central Jail, Kot-Bhalwal, Jammu, since December 2023 on drug-related charges under the Public Safety Act.
Aijaz has pledged to fight for the rights of those arrested under similar circumstances and aims to highlight local issues like youth rehabilitation and infrastructure development.
He said that he would not use his brother Afzal Guru’s name in his campaign, choosing instead to focus on addressing the long-standing neglect of Sopore by its political leaders. “My ideology is different from my brother’s,” Aijaz said.
“I believe that the people of Kashmir were betrayed by every political leader, some in the name of autonomy, self rule, and some in the name of ‘Azadi’. Everybody betrayed the people of Kashmir,” he said.
Afzal Guru was hanged and buried in Tihar on February 9, 2013, after being convicted for the 2001 attack on Parliament. He was hanged for his role, triggering mass protests in the Valley. His body was not handed over to his family in north Kashmir’s Sopore town and was instead buried inside the jail premises.
