PDP fields senior journalist with eye on Pandits
Meraj, Shamim's nephew, has over the years worked with various national and international newspapers and magazines. In 1999, he established English daily Kashmir Monitor has been its editor since.
The PDP has fielded senior journalist Zafar Meraj as its candidate from the Habba Kadal Assembly seat in Srinagar.
The scion of a business family from old Srinagar's Zaina Kadal area, Meraj has a degree in law from the Aligarh Muslim University. After getting his law degree in 1975, Meraj joined local Urdu daily Aaina, which was edited by the late wellknown Kashmiri journalist Shamim Ahmad Shamim.
Meraj, Shamim's nephew, has over the years worked with various national and international newspapers and magazines. In 1999, he established English daily Kashmir Monitor has been its editor since.
In 1994, he survived an assassination attempt by counterinsurgents on the Srinagar-Baramulla road. Later, Meraj sent his son Shamim Meraj to Delhi, where he lived with a Kashmir Pandit for six years.
Incidentally, at least 14,000 of Habba Kadal's 67,000 voters are Kashmiri Pandits. Meraj abhors addressing them as migrants and instead refers to them as a "displaced community".
"My father and I have a long association with Kashmiri Pandits and most of his friends are from the community," Shamim said. Meraj's associates asserted that he is a strong advocate of the Pandits' return to the Valley. The PDP is not leaving any chance to woo Pandit voters as the BJP is eyeing the votebank to make a mark in Kashmir.