Srinagar: Former Hurriyat chairman and a prominent Shia cleric of Kashmir Molana Abbas Ansari, 86, passed away after a prolonged illness on Tuesday.
“Maulana (Ansari) breathed his last at his Nawakadal residence in the old city on Tuesday morning,” news agency PTI quoted a relative of the deceased leader as saying.
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, the report said.
He had stepped aside from active politics and his son Masroor had replaced him in Hurriyat as representative of Ittehadul Muslimeen party.
Several political leaders Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti, Altaf Bukhari, Sajad Lone and several others condoled the death of Ansari.
