SRINAGAR, May 25: A pro-Pakistan separatist said on Sunday he was removed by his party as its representative on Kashmir’s main separatist alliance because of differences with its leaders.

Jamaat-i-Islami on Saturday replaced Syed Ali Geelani with moderate leader Sheikh Ali Mohammed as their member on the executive council of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC).

The party said Geelani was removed because of ill-health.

He underwent surgery two months ago, after doctors detected a cyst in one of his kidneys while he was in a jail in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand.

He was arrested by the police in June last year on charges of funding Hizbul Mujahideen, but was released on parole in March so he could seek medical treatment.

On Sunday Geelani denied he was replaced because he had not been attending Hurriyat meetings due to illness.

He said he had not been at the meetings because the organization had not taken action against another of its members, the People’s Conference (PC) party, for participating in last year’s state elections.

The Hurriyat boycotted the polls, saying they were not a solution to the dispute in Kashmir.

One of the former PC members was elected to the state legislature, while two others lost narrowly. The PC said it expelled the members who defied the election boycott.

“Everybody knows the reality. They supported them otherwise the candidates couldn’t have won,” Geelani told reporters on Sunday.

“My conscience didn’t allow me to be party to betrayal,” said Geelani, explaining why he had not attended the Hurriyat meetings.

“I had asked Jamaat also to stop sending anyone else to Hurriyat meetings,” he added.

But he said he would continue to be part of Jamaat.

“I don’t challenge their (party leaders’) authority,” he said, but added “tomorrow they may oust me from Jamaat too.”

Hurriyat chief Abdul Ghani Bhat, who last year wrote to the Jamaat chief urging him to replace Geelani because of “his hawkish approach”, said Sunday it was Jamaat’s right to decide their representative in the Hurriyat.—AFP