Srinagar: Softening its stand on the breakaway group of 13, the Hurriyat Conference on September 8 said it would be issuing show cause notices to the rebel general council's members and seek their position on yesterday's meeting in which they had replaced chairman Maulana Mohammad Abbas Ansari.

"We will issue show cause notices to the erring members and ask them to explain as to how they took the unconstitutional decision of replacing Ansari," former Hurriyat chairman Abdul Ghani Bhatt told reporters at Hurriyat headquarters after an emergency meeting of the executive council.

The meeting was attended by Ansari, Bhatt, former Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Bilal Ghani Lone of People's Conference.

Bhatt said the executive has authorised Mirwaiz to call a meeting of all the basic members of APHC (All Party Hurriyat Conference) to arrive at a consensus on the issue and to activate the amalgam.

"We are thankful to the group of 13 for providing us an opportunity to reactivate our basic units," Bhatt said.

Chairman Ansari will call the meeting of the executive after the basic members meet to take a final decision on the group of 13, he said.

Earlier on September 8, supporters of Hurriyat Conference chairman Maulana Mohammad Abbas Ansari and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq stormed the office of the amalgam's headquaters at Rajbagh in Srinagar.

The Hurriyat Conference had split vertically on September 7 after 13 members of the general council decided to oust Ansari and suspend his executive, "a move described as unconstitutional and illegal" by the Hurriyat chairman.

PTI