Hurriyat’s influence has declined due to internal rifts and a Centre crackdown.
Mirwaiz has kept a low profile, mostly under house arrest in recent years.
Most Hurriyat groups are banned, and separatist politics has largely receded.
Mirwaiz Removes 'Hurriyat Chairman' Designation From Social Media
Miriwaiz's X handle, which has more than two lakh followers, now only includes his name and location detail
Summary
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.
Mirwaiz took over as Hurriyat chairman in 1993 at the age of 20. This was only little over three years after the assassination of his father, Mirwaiz Molvi Farooq.
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organisations of the APHC, and many senior leaders have since been arrested/booked under stringent laws or have withdrawn from public activity entirely.
Mirwaiz, has in recent years, maintained a limited public presence, focusing largely religious sermons and statements on civil liberties and humanitarian issues.
Earlier, senior journalist and political analyst Anuradha Bhasin told Al Jazeera: “He has always been a symbolic figure, straddling the religious and the political. In this charged political climate, not just separatists but even mainstream political actors have been left with very little room for articulation. What we’re seeing now is survival within that narrow space. He has been mostly under house arrest for the last six years, and the Hurriyat has completely disappeared – so he’s isolated.”
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