Nueva Delhi: Former Hurriyat president and defender of India-Pakistan speaks to resolve the Kashmir’s dispute, Professor Abdul Ghani Bhat, died in SoPore on Wednesday. He was 89 years old.
According to family members, Bhat had recently felt badly and “died peacefully in his residence.” Official sources said the administration suggested that the family “concludes the final rites on Wednesday night.”
The president of Hurriyat, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and other colleagues from Srinagar were not allowed to visit Sopore, The Hindu saying.
Bhat, who easily cited classic Persian poets to describe each crisis and its resolution, was one of the few leaders in occupied Kashmir, whose political career was extended by conventional electoral policy to seek a final settlement for the problem of Kashmir.
Having renounced his government as a Persian professor to join politics, he co-founded the United Muslim Front (MUF), which challenged the 1987 elections. He later became president of Hurriyat, an amalgam of at least 13 anti-india groups, in the 1990s, and directed Cashmir’s policy for many years.
Favored talks with Islamabad
A firm defender of the conversations about Cashmiro with Delhi and Islamabad, Bhat was one of the few assistants of Kashmir who met publicly in the Prime Minister and leader of BJP, LK Advani, in 2004 and clicks him.
He obtained criticism and praise for his statements made after meeting Mr. Advani. “The peace process must proceed step by step. Weapons must be replaced by political conversations,” Bhat said after the conversations.
He continued to involve Pakistani and Indian interlocutors to press for conversations structured in Kashmir.
Called UN resolutions ‘inapplicable’
In 2017, Bhat was eliminated as president of the Muslim Conference to meet with Delhi’s special representative, Dinehwar Sharma and express his willingness to speak with New Delhi.
He had previously faced the severe criticisms of Hurriyat leaders in 2012 for saying that “the United Nations resolutions were not applicable and that the time has come to draw a minimum common program with the conventional parties.”
He was also among the few leaders who maintained a healthy relationship with conventional leaders such as the founder of the Democratic Party of the Peoples (PDP) MUFTI SAYEED.
Bhat was a close and assistant associate of the president of Hurriyat, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
“I lost a affectionate old man, a dear friend and colleague. A great personal loss. Cashmiro has lost one of its sincere and visionary leaders,” Mirwaiz said.
Expressing his condolences, the president of PDP, Mehbooba Mufti, said: “I am deeply sad. It was a voice of moderation in the middle of the tumultuous history of Kashmir, an estimated scholar, teacher and intellectual with a pragmatic approach to politics.
The vice president of the National Conference and the Prime Minister of J & K, Omar Abdullah, said he was “sad to hear about the disappearance of the political leader of Kashmir and Academic Professor Abdul Ghani Bhat SB”.
“Our political ideologies were separate Poles, but I will always remember him as a very civilian person. He had the courage to defend the cause of dialogue when many believed that violence was the only way to follow and this turned out that he met the then Prime Minister Vajpayee Ji and the deputy Prime Minister Advani Ji. May Bhat Sb find a place in Jannat,” said Mr. Abdullah.
Posted in Dawn, September 18, 2025
