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India has agreed to allow a top Kashmiri separatist leader suffering from cancer to travel abroad for treatment and will issue his passport on Thursday, an official said. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who heads a breakaway faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an alliance of political separatists, has cancer in his only kidney and his supporters had urged New Delhi to let him travel abroad for treatment. The 77-year-old leader's passport was confiscated by authorities in 1981 for what they said were his anti-India activities. L.S. Ramulu, the regional passport officer in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir's main city, told Reuters that Geelani's passport was being processed and would be issued on Thursday. Indian newspapers said New Delhi had decided to allow Geelani to travel abroad as a "humanitarian" gesture. Ayaz Akbar, Geelani's spokesman, said the group would decide where Geelani would be treated after the passport was issued. Doctors had advised the leader to be taken to Britain or the United States, Akbar said on Tuesday. Geelani is considered a hardliner and is supported by many militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. He believes the only solution to the Kashmir problem is merger with Pakistan.