Family members of a teenager from Soura who died in 2010 after he was beaten by forces held a protest in Srinagar on Human Rights Day Sunday. Umar Qayoom, 17, was beaten by policemen and CRPF men during the 2010 uprising at Soura and later held in police custody despite his serious condition, his family says.

He succumbed to injuries at a Srinagar hospital on 25 August 2010. No FIR has been registered in the case despite Umar’s family approaching the authorities several times . His father says that the then chief minister Omar Abdullah had the family “dragged out of his house when we approached him with our case” while former chief minster Mufti Mohammad Sayeed “deceived us by making false promises.”

Appearing before a trial court hearing  a petition by Umar’s  family, the state counsel last month admitted  that  CRPF personnel had beaten up the teenager . On being asked as to whether the police knew that CRPF personnel were involved in thrashing of Umar the counsel said that it was the negligence of concerned police station and sought time of two weeks to ascertain the facts from the police department.

Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik was detained as he tried to take out a march towards the local office of the United Nations in Srinagar to protest human rights violations in Kashmir.

Malik was near the Lal Chowk city centre in Srinagar and was to march towards the office of United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) at Sonwar.

The march was foiled by the police who detained  Malik and took him to Kothi Bagh police station.

The joint resistance leadership on Thursday had asked people to observe a shutdown and march towards the office of UNMOGIP to protest the “gross human rights violations”.

“On December 10, the international human rights day, Kashmiris will observe a complete shut down and blackout against gross human rights violations,” the separatists, under the banner of Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), had said in a statement.

(Pictures by Zargar Zahoor)