Ashraf Sehrai, Close Aide of Geelani, Passes Away After Health Deteriorates in Jail
Jammu, May 5, KNT: Senior separatist leader and Chairman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai, passed away at Government Medical College Jammu on Wednesday morning after his health deteriorated while in detention, officials and medical sources said.
Sehrai, who had been booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA), was lodged at Kot Bhalwal Jail in Jammu and was shifted to the hospital on Tuesday after his condition worsened.
A doctor at Government Medical College Jammu confirmed that the veteran leader died on Wednesday morning and said he had been suffering from multiple ailments.
Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai, a prominent figure in Kashmir’s separatist politics, was 77 at the time of his death.
Sehrai had been detained under the Public Safety Act in July 2020 and was kept in preventive detention in Jammu region prisons before being hospitalized due to deteriorating health.
Born in 1944 in Tekipora village of the Lolab Valley in north Kashmir, Sehrai had a long political career spanning several decades and remained closely associated with the separatist movement in the region.
He served as a senior leader of Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir for many years and later became a founding member of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, a political organization advocating the right to self-determination in Kashmir.
Sehrai rose to prominence as a close associate of veteran Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and was widely regarded as one of the senior leaders within the separatist camp.
In 2018, he was elected Chairman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat after Geelani stepped down from the post due to health reasons, marking the first internal election held within the organization.
Over the decades, Sehrai had been detained several times and remained a vocal critic of New Delhi’s policies in Kashmir.
His death comes nearly a year after he was taken into preventive custody following political developments in Jammu and Kashmir in 2020.
Sehrai’s passing is expected to draw reactions from political and religious circles across the region given his long association with the separatist movement and his influence within sections of Kashmiri political discourse. [KNT]
