Former Hurriyat chairman Maulana Abbas Ansari passes away

Former chairman of the Hurriyat Conference and influential Shia leader 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.

He had stepped aside from active politics and his son Masroor had replaced him in Hurriyat as representative of Ittehadul Muslimeen party.