SRINAGAR — Senior religious leader and chief priest of Kashmir, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, on Friday said that he was pressured by authorities to drop the title of ‘Hurriyat Chairman’ from his profile on X and the “circumstances gave him a Hobson’s choice”.
Mirwaiz Umar said on X, “For some time now, I was being pressed by the authorities to make changes to my X (formerly Twitter) handle as Hurriyat chairman, as all constituents of Hurriyat Conference, including the Awami Action Committee that I head have been banned under the UAPA, making Hurriyat a banned organisation, failing which they will take down my handle.”
For some time now, I was being pressed by the authorities to make changes to my X (formerly Twitter) handle as Hurriyat chairman, as all constituents of Hurriyat Conference, including the Awami Action Committee that I head have been banned under the UAPA, making Hurriyat a banned…
— Mirwaiz Umar Farooq (@MirwaizKashmir) December 26, 2025
“At a time when public space and avenues of communication stand severely restricted, this platform remains among the very few means available to me to reach out to my people and share my views on our issues with them, and the outside world. Under such circumstances, it is a Hobson’s choice I was left to make,” Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said.
The Mirwaiz was the first chairman of the separatist organisation, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), formed in 1993. The alliance comprised separatist political groups, traders’ bodies and civil society groups.
The APHC termed Kashmir a dispute and demanded the implementation of United Nations resolutions on Kashmir.
After 2019, when the Bharatiya Janata Party government revoked Article 370 and downgraded the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into a Union Territory, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) was declared a banned organisation. Its constituents were subsequently placed under the scanner of intelligence agencies, after which the APHC has largely remained defunct. –With inputs from IANS
