The regional passport officer issued the Passport to Geelani and his son Ayaz Akbar Geelani after the prime minister intervened in the matter. Authorities had impounded Geelani's passport in 1993.

"Geelani has been diagnosed for kidney ailment recently at Delhi's Apollo hospital where attending doctors detected Cancer and advised him to seek surgical treatment either in the US or UK," Ayaz Akbar Geelani's spokesman said in Srinagar.

It must be mentioned that Geelani's left kidney had been removed in Mumbai after his release from Ranchi jail in 2003 where he had been detained following his arrest in Srinagar in September 2002.

Geelani is known for his hard-line views, which resulted in his breaking away from the Kashmiri separatist conglomerate, All Parties Hurriyat Conference in 2003 after which he formed his own APHC group which he heads now as its chairman.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani has been critical of the ongoing bilateral talks between India and Pakistan maintaining that right to self determination was the only workable solution to the Kashmir problem. Before joining the APHC, Geelani had a long association with the local Jamaat Islami party.

Image: Hard-line Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
Photograph: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images

Also See:
India has to accept Kashmir as a disputed territory

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