Srinagar, June 9, 2011: Callousness can be limitless. Nearly a year after the teenager Umar Qayoom of Soura in Srinagar who was killed in custody while the police have yet to register an FIR in the case. Abdul Qayoom Bhat—father of the deceased—said police have been insisting on exhumation of his son’s body for postmortem “but they are refusing to file FIR.”
“Last week the police called us to the Soura police station. When I went there, I was in fact told that court has sent some directions to police regarding the case. And police asked me permission for exhumation of the body,” Qayoom told the Kashmir Times. “I insisted on filing an FIR first, but they refused.”
17- year-old Umar succumbed to injuries on August 25, 2010 after he was ruthlessly beaten by police. On the preceding Friday of August 20, Umar, according to his family, had gone to the marketplace where pro-freedom demonstrations were on. While chasing away the protesters police caught hold of Umar. “He was beaten and trampled ruthlessly,” his family was quoted as saying. “Then police took him to the police station where he was continuously complaining of pain in the abdomen, but police denied him treatment.”
“When we went to see him he pleaded before us to take him to the hospital, but police did not give permission.”
Umar was kept in custody for nearly 36 hours. Back home, he complained of sever pain again that prompted his family to hospitalize him. Three days later he succumbed to internal injuries at Soura Institute of Medical Sciences in Srinagar. Reportedly, 18 people were injured in police action on his funeral procession.
The details filed in the court by police in response to a petition by Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) in last year’s 118 killings, make no mention of denial of treatment to Umar during custody.
According to Qayoom, the police do not even entertain the death certificate that clearly mentions the cause of the teenager’s death. “When I was called by police I showed the death certificate, asking them to register the case on this basis. But the policed authority paid no respect to it,” he said, expressing his reservations in consenting the exhumation.
“He (Umar) is buried just a few yards away our home. How can they so easily talk about exhumation after 10 months and 12 days of his death?” he asked. “And what is there to find out from the postmortem? It is all clever. Death certificate says it all.”
When a news man DANISH ZARGAR contacted Soura police station in Srinagar regarding the development, the police officials said “the case is headway.” They declined to deny of confirm existence of an FIR of the case.