Srinagar

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the chief cleric and a moderate separatist voice in the Kashmir Valley, on Thursday evening removed his designation as 'Chairman All Parties Hurriyat Conference' from his verified X profile.

The edited bio in the Miriwaiz's X handle only contains his name and basic location details. He has more than two lakh followers.

The Mirwaiz, whose own organisation Awami Action Committee has been banned by the Centre under the stringent anti-terror law, was not immediately available for comments.

Formed in 1993, the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) was a conglomerate of separatist groups in Jammu and Kashmir, wielding enough influence to coordinate mass shutdowns and political mobilisations.

However, the organisation’s dominance eroded over the last decade due to several factors, including infighting and, later, a crackdown by the Centre that significantly tightened its approach toward separatist groups.

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After the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, the Centre banned most of the constituent organisations of the APHC, and many senior leaders have since been arrested/booked under stringent laws or have withdrawn from public activity entirely.