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Ajaz Ahmad Guru
Ajaz Ahmad Guru, the elder brother of 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, has filed his nomination as an Independent candidate for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections from the Sopore constituency. Ajaz Guru, who took voluntary retirement from the animal husbandry department in 2014, currently works as a contractor.
He has cited several reasons for his decision to contest the elections, including the arrest of his son Shoaib on alleged drug peddling charges and the desire to fight for other youths who have been "arrested in fabricated cases by police". The recent victory of Independent candidate Engineer Rashid in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Baramulla has also influenced Ajaz Guru's decision to enter the fray.
Ajaz Guru has asserted that he will not seek votes in the name of his brother Afzal Guru, as their ideologies differ. He believes that the people of Kashmir have been betrayed by every political leader, "some in the name of autonomy, self-rule and some in the name of "azadi"." Sopore, once considered a stronghold of separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani, has witnessed a significant increase in voter turnout in recent elections. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, more than 44 per cent of voters turned out in the Sopore Assembly segment, a major change from the past.