ISLAMABAD: Pakistan welcomed the decision by Kashmir’s All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) to appoint Masrat Alam Bhat as its new chairman, its foreign office said on Wednesday, a week after the death of iconic pro-independence Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Geelani. 
Geelani, who died on Wednesday at the age of 92, had been a thorn in India’s side since the early 1960s when he began campaigning for the merger with Pakistan of the part of Kashmiri territory administered by India. 
The veteran politician was an icon of Kashmiri resistance and undisputed leader of the APHC, which is the umbrella organization of most pro-independence Kashmiri groups. 
The APHC’s move to appoint Bhat its chief, and Shabbir Ahmad Shah and Ghulam Ahmad Gulzar vice-chairmen, appears to be aimed at filling the void left after Geelani’s death. 
“As the true representatives of the Kashmiris in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), APHC leadership is the real voice of their aspirations,” the Pakistani foreign office said in a statement. 
It said that APHC leaders had for years been at the forefront of the struggle for the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people and they would undoubtedly receive the support of the masses as torchbearers of the Kashmiris’ struggle against “illegal Indian occupation.” 
Islamabad would continue to provide all possible assistance to the Kashmiri people in their legitimate struggle, the statement reiterated, as enshrined in the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. 
Tensions spiked in Kashmir after Geelani’s death last week, with thousands of Indian security forces patrolling the streets to keep people indoors following clashes between residents and government forces in the main city of Srinagar late Thursday, the AFP reported. 
Dozens of citizens, angry at the refusal to let them pay a public tribute to Geelani, clashed with government forces and hurled stones at paramilitaries who chased them with batons. 
Geelani’s son accused police of taking his father’s body away to be buried in the middle of the night, hours after his death. 
The veteran politician, who had spent much of the past five decades in jail or under house arrest, had infuriated successive Indian governments with his pro-Pakistan stance and demands for a self-determination vote. 
The nuclear-armed neighbors have disputed the region since their independence in 1947 and have fought two wars over Kashmir.