Hurriyat Conference Geelani faction received a jolt on Monday with constituent Jammu and Kashmir [Images] People's Movement deciding to part ways.

The decision to part ways with the hard-line faction was taken at a crucial meeting, party sources said.

They added the party had decided to join the moderate faction headed by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq.

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The party led by G M Mir, at present detained under the Public Safety Act, was a general council member of the undivided Hurriyat and lent its support to Geelani after the split in ranks about two years back, they said.

This is the second constituent of the Geelani faction to have deserted within 35 days. Earlier, on July 26, Anjuman-e-Sharie Shiyaan of Aga Syed Hassan, one of the leading religious Shia groups in the Valley, left Geelani.

Differences had cropped up within the hard-line faction after Geelani rejected the invitation to visit Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on June 2 and further hardened his stand.