Senior separatist leader and Tehreek-e-Hurriyat chief Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai passed away at a Jammu hospital on Wednesday, officials said.

Sehrai died a day after he was admitted there. He was booked under PSA in July last year and lodged in Udhampur jail.
“On Tuesday we admitted him to GMC Jammu after he complained of breathlessness and his health deteriorated. He was suffering from multiple ailments,” a government official said.
Family sources said although he had not been keeping well, he used to call twice a week, “The calls didn’t come in past ten days. He wasn’t doing well due to multiple medical conditions. On Tuesday evening, we were told that he has been taken to GMC,” a family member said.
“We managed to send some of our extended family members there and they told us Sehrai sahab had been left alone without assistance, and we needed to come soon. Unfortunately, he passed away even before any of us could reach (Jammu),” a news portal quoting family sources, said.
Government sources said it has not been confirmed whether Sehrai was suffering from Covid-19, although his oxygen level had dipped dropped to about 60 last night, reports said.
“We have been told to bury him only at our ancestral graveyard in Kupwara and not anywhere else,” said Mujahid Sehrai, son of the separatist leader.
Born in 1944 in Tekipora village of Lolab area of north Kashmir’s Kupwara district, Sehrai completed his primary education in his hometown Tekipora and secondary education from Sogam Lolab High School in 1959.
A friend of the Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Geelani, he completed his Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Urdu from Aligarh Muslim University. He was fond of writing and his writings as well as poems were mostly published in different media outlets including ‘Tulu’, which he started publishing in 1969 from Sopore area of Baramulla district.
The magazine being published by him was shut down in 1971. He had contested against National Conference founder Sheikh Abdullah soon after the Indira-Sheikh accord was signed.
Sehrai became an affiliate of Geelani in 1959 and became his close aide and friend. He became the member of Jamaat-e-Islami in 1960 and was incarcerated for the first time in the year 1965 over anti-government activities after he delivered a speech criticizing Ghulam Mohammed Sadiq's government for repression of free speech and arrest of members of the Moh-e-Muqaddas Majlis-e-Amal.
After leaving Jamaat-e-Islami, Sehrai was appointed as Tehreek-e-Hurriyat's General Secretary in the year 2004 during its foundation. Later on March 19, 2018, he was appointed the acting chairman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat after Geelani stepped down.
Sehrai was elected as Chairman Tehreek-e-Hurriyat for three years on 19 August by a margin of 410 votes out of a total of 433.
Sehrai is survived by three sons and two daughters. The youngest son of Sehrai, Junaid Sehrai joined militant ranks in March 2018 and was killed on May 19, 2020 in an encounter in Srinagar.
In July 2020, Sehrai was arrested under Public Safety Act and was serving imprisonment in district jail of Udhampur. His health deteriorated on May 04, 2021 following which he was subsequently admitted at Government Medical College, Jammu. (With agency inputs)