Srinagar : Separatist Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Geelani was Thursday issued a fresh passport following the prime minister's intervention to enable him to go abroad for medical treatment of renal cancer.

Doctors treating the 77-year-old leader had advised him to undergo treatment in either the US or Britain. His passport, however, was impounded in 1981.

After Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this week intervened in the matter on humanitarian grounds, he applied for the passport again.

"We issued the passport to Geelani and his son today after completing various formalities," regional passport officer L.S. Ramulu told IANS here Thursday evening.

The left kidney of the firebrand leader heading a Hurriyat faction was removed four year ago when he was released from a jail in Ranchi after suffering severe renal infection.

He separated from the Hurriyat Conference after his release and is now heading the hardliner Hurriyat group.

Geelani, who was admitted to Apollo Hospital in New Delhi earlier this week, was diagnosed as suffering from renal cancer.

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