Thousands welcomed moderate separatist leaders in Indian Kashmir home yesterday after a month of peace talks in Pakistan.

The attack on the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference headquarters late on Wednesday came days after some of its leaders travelled to Pakistan for meetings with officials and top Kashmiri militants based there.

"The grenade exploded inside the premises of the Hurriyat office damaging a vehicle," a police official said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of Hurriyat, returned to Srinagar yesterday along with two senior separatist leaders after the Pakistan visit.

Chanting "We want freedom" and "Long live Pakistan," supporters on rooftops of cars, buses and jeeps cheered the leaders as they appeared in cars from the summer capital Srinagar's high-security airport.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the head cleric at Srinagar's main mosque, travelled with close associates last month to Pakistan in a bid to influence a peace process between New Delhi and Islamabad over the disputed Kashmir region.

The moderate leaders, as opposed to hardline separatists who advocate violence to overturn New Delhi's rule in Indian Kashmir, met Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf among others.

The moderate group has faced criticism and violence for advocating an end to an insurgency in Indian Kashmir that has claimed at least 44,000 lives since 1989.

On Wednesday a grenade was thrown at Farooq's headquarters by suspected militants but no one was injured, police said. Last month militants tried to bomb Farooq's house but were thwarted.

India and Pakistan began a peace process in January 2004 aimed at reducing a tense military standoff over Kashmir.