SRINAGAR, Jan 14: Kashmiri leader Shabir Shah returned to the All Parties’ Hurriyat Conference on Monday, more than a decade after he was suspended for defying a call to boycott the US ambassador to India.

He was suspended by the APHC in 1996 for meeting the then US envoy.

Mr Shah had subsequently launched his own group.

“Shabir Shah, welcome home,” Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of a faction of the APHC said to him at a news conference here. “Shabir Shah’s return will help Hurriyat to take this struggle to its logical end,” he said.

“Let us fight jointly to end Indian occupation,” said 54-year-old Shah, who had spent 20 years in jails before being released in 1994.

Mr Farooq appealed to other leaders to join Hurriyat to ensure a united voice and settle the dispute over Kashmir.—Reuters