Srinagar/ Islamabad, June 2: The last time a separatist leader from Kashmir went to Pakistan and preached peace to militants, he was assassinated six months later.

Abdul Ghani Lone, a senior All Parties Hurriyat Conference leader, was shot dead in Srinagar in May, 2002, at a time India and Pakistan stood eyeball to eyeball on the border.

Three years on, with the nuclear rivals seeking lasting peace, several of Lone’s former colleagues in the Hurriyat began a tour of Pakistan-administered Kashmir today.

Hundreds of people, including politicians, students and journalists, gathered to watch seven Hurriyat members and two other separatist leaders cross the “friendship bridge” on foot and enter Chakothi town, 58 km from Muzaffarabad.

To Pakistan-administered Kashmir Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan, former Pakistan Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussein and the many politicians there, the first-ever authorised visit by Hurriyat leaders was “historic”.

Lone’s son Bilal Ghani Lone, one of the visitors, said: “Let us hope the best for the people of Pakistan, India and Kashmir.”

The visit reminded former militant Mohammad Yasin Malik of the time he would visit this area in the late 1980s with his friends, all of whom are now dead. He said he was now taking “the same route for peace”.

Their main purpose, the leaders said, was to ensure Kashmiris’ involvement as a third party in the efforts to resolve the territorial dispute.

“I had been across the LoC to obtain weapons training. Now I am going across to convey the verdict of the Kashmiri people that they should be involved,” Malik said.

“Without Kashmiris’ involvement, the peace process is not going to move forward,” said Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, chairman of the moderate Hurriyat leaders.

Malik, chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, was the first out of Srinagar as he wanted to leave quietly, seeing no need to “celebrate the occasion”.

With him was the other traveller from outside the Hurriyat, Mohammad Abdullah Tari of the Democratic Freedom Party, whose chief Shabir Ahmad Shah was denied travel documents because he had stated his nationality as “Kashmiri” instead of “Indian”.

The seven Hurriyat leaders ? Farooq, Abdul Ghani Bhat, Moulvi Abbas Ansari, Bilal Lone, Ghulam Mohammad Bhat, Mohammad Yaqoob Vakil and Fazl Haq Qureshi ? received a warm send-off.

All nine preferred private cars to the “peace bus” to travel to the LoC. From Chakothi, they left for Muzaffarabad in a motorcade along a route decorated with flags and banners.