Srinagar: Influential Shia leader and former chairman of the Hurriyat Conference Maulana Abbas Ansari died here on Tuesday. He was 86.
“Maulana (Ansari) breathed his last at his Nawakadal residence in the old city on Tuesday morning,” a relative of the deceased leader said.
He said Ansari was not keeping well for the past couple of months and was hospitalized for some time in September.
Ansari was the last chairman of the undivided Hurriyat Conference which split into two factions soon after his election as the head of the separatist amalgam in 2003.
It was during the tenure of Ansari as the chairman of the separatist amalgam that the moderate faction entered into talks with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
National Conference, PDP, JKPC, Apni Party and several other political parties have condoled the demise of the Shia leader and expressed solidarity with the bereaved family.
