Pakistan's military ruler Parvez Musharraf telephoned a senior separatist Kashmiri leader to offer his condolences after his brother's assassination, a local news agency said Saturday.
Musharraf late Friday called Agha Syed Hassan, a front-rank leader of the All Parties Freedom Conference ("Hurriyat") -- an umbrella group of some two dozen separatist political parties -- and described his brother's killing as "highly regrettable."
Kashmir Press Service news agency said the conversation lasted for more than 10 minutes.
Hassan's younger brother, Aga Syed Mehdi, a senior pro-India politician was killed in a bomb attack along with five others in northern Kashmir on November 3. Police blamed militants for the attack.
A hitherto unknown militant group, Lashkar-e-Karbala, claimed responsibility, accusing Mehdi of being "very close" to the army.
Mehdi was the son of the top spiritual leader of Kashmir's Shiite community, which makes up 10 percent of the state's majority Muslim population.
Authorities had to impose a curfew for two days to prevent clashes between Shiite and the dominant Sunni Muslim community in Kashmir.
Hurriyat leaders attended the funeral of Mehdi, sparking criticism by few of the separatist groups.
Aasiya Andrabi, the chief of a women's separatist group, Daughters of Faith, Saturday criticized the Pakistani military ruler for condoling the death of a pro-India leader.
"It is a reflection of his (Pervez Musharraf's) deceptive politics," she said in a one-page Urdu press release.
"Pro-India leaders are equally responsible for repression in Kashmir as are the personnel of the armed forces."
More than 34,000 people have died in Kashmir since 1989 in violence related to a Muslim insurgency -- SRINAGAR (AFP)
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