A small piece of paper scribbled with ‘self-driven’ suicide note almost rested the speculations about another Kashmiri dying mysteriously outside the valley. A hate crime in the hostile ecosystem was perhaps one of the first conjectures. But the unfolding events and the dots being connected since then make it a tricky hanging case.
It happened, as per the suicide note, at 11:04 pm on September 12, soon after Umer Dave from Chewdara Beerwah Budgam wished his friends: “Goodnight.”
With the dawn of the new day, the 19-year-old’s body was found hanged with black tie on the terrace of Mehak Hostel in RIMT (Regional Institute of Management and Technology) University.
When the body was taken by police for postmortem, a sea of students reportedly shouted: ‘Umer hum sharminda hai, tere katil zinda hai.’ Umer, we’re ashamed, as your killers are alive.
Either raised in an emotional rage or in some concrete context, the slogan has already casted shadows on the self-execution angle.
Back home in Kashmir, Umer’s family members were shaken to see the photo of their “sensible” son hanging from a solar-panel grill. They initially confused the “weak and withered” body as a lookalike of their son. But once the identity got established, the Dave family of Budgam began beating their chests.
“I got a call from a friend telling me how he had seen my sibling’s shocking photo,” Showkat Dave, Umer’s elder brother recalls the tormenting moment.
“By then our neighbours had also seen the same photo and were arriving in our home to express solidarity with us. I immediately booked ticket and went straight to Gobingarh Punjab.”
At the campus, Showkat, 28, fought tears while trying to see his sibling’s dead face. But due to probe and postmortem, he was stopped. Scores of doctors were conducting Umer’s postmortem in Civil Hospital FatehGarh Sahib area of Gobingarh Punjab.
“I didn’t interfere in the postmortem as my family also wanted to know if someone has killed our kid or beaten him,” Showkat says.
“It could be anything but suicide.”
At Budgam, the Dave family desperately awaited the final arrival of their dead son. Consoled by countless crying faces, Umer’s mother was seen saying: “If the killers are not arrested, I will slit my throat!”
These emotional cries stemmed from the recent campus events.
Some 10 days before found hanged in his hostel, Umar was involved in a campus fight with his seniors. “From the very first day of that fight, he was facing regular harassments,” says Showkat.
“He had even filed an official complaint in Police Station Sirhind and was later forced to withdraw it. I don’t know every detail but his close friend told me that Umer was mentally tortured for days. He was badly hounded, even with nocturnal calls.”
Umer, as per Showkat, had told his friends: ‘One gang leaves me as other comes to haunt me.’
Due to the alleged gang-angle, Showkat raises endless queries: “Why isn’t police investigating the matter quickly? Why is it taking too long to access Umar’s phone records and call details? Why don’t they contact the university to easily access CCTV footage to see who the boys were? If his uniform tie was red, why he was hanged with a black tie? How could he prefer to hang himself from a little height where he could’ve easily saved himself by pulling down his toes? Why was he wearing only one slipper?”
But while all these questions remain unanswered, Umer’s friends are changing their statements.
“The students may have been pressurized by the university as it’s a matter of their reputation at the end of the day,” says a former student activist.
However, to make the varsity come clean on the case, student leader Nasir Khuehami has already taken up the matter with Punjab Media Advisor, Raveen Thukral.
Sensing the urgency of the matter, the Budgam boy’s hostel warden, Nitin told The Himalayan Post that the much-talked about campus clash was put to rest by Umer himself. He didn’t explain much and hung up.
The warden in question, Showkat says, had warned Umer not to withdraw the complaint against the “bad boys” of the hostel. “He had told him that he would fine him Rs 80,000 if he withdrew his complaint,” the sibling says.
But Umer was pressured to withdraw the complaint after his senior dared him to go after him, Showkat says. “He was forced to do that and pushed to the wall. Otherwise my brother wasn’t the sort of person who could fight or kill himself. He was a happy person, who couldn’t commit suicide.”
However, based on the postmortem report showing no body marks, Punjab Police see it as a suicide case, even though the investigations on call records and a suicide note are still in process.
The suicide note found in Umer’s hostel is being attributed to him. Without accusing anyone, the note terms the suicide as a self-taken step. But many are raising queries over it saying that the writing on the note doesn’t match with Umer’s handwriting.
“The suicide note has been sent to the experts to match it with the boy’s handwriting,” Manjeet Singh, Deputy Superintendent of Police Fatehgarh Sahib, told The Himalayan Post. “But we’ve no reports of scuffles and threat calls by gangs on his phone record.”
The same version was repeated by SHO Sirhind, Sikandar. “We’re waiting for the forensic report on the suicide note,” he said. “And since the investigation is going on, we cannot comment on the case in detail for now.”
While the official side of the story revolves around the suicide and the awaited forensic report, Umer’s family back home is still wondering about the boys who stormed their son’s hostel. They call it “a murder case”, thus defying Punjab Police’s suicide stance.
But with investigations on the suicide note currently going on, Umer’s roommate from Poonch and his friends from Kashmir say otherwise.
In the run-up to his hanging, Umer’s roommate told this reporter, he was constantly fighting with his girlfriend over phone.
“He was a little sick and the girl was repeatedly telling him to visit a doctor,” the roommate recounts. “She even talked to our hostel security guard, arranged ambulance for him and called the warden, but Umer assured everyone that he was doing fine.”
Around 10.30pm on September 12, he came to his friend’s room and was talking on the phone continuously. Some minutes later, he left the room on pretext of using washroom.
“It took him long, so I called him several times but he did not pick up,” the roommate recalls. “I called him last at around 1.15 am. I thought he’s sleeping in his friend’s room. On that note I closed the room and slept.”
The next morning, Umer’s roommate woke up as usual – had shower and breakfast, and got ready for the university.
“I checked my phone and saw many miss-calls from Umer’s girlfriend,” the roommate recalls. “She called again at 9:56 am, saying she wanted to talk to Umer. I informed her he had not come to the campus yet. On that, she asked me to go out and find him everywhere without dropping the call.”
Along the way, the Poonch boy met Umer’s friends and together they started searching for him in almost every corner of the hostel before finding him hanging on the terrace.
“We froze in shock when we spotted him dead,” recalls the Poonch boy feigning ignorance over the much-talked about campus clash. “No one had ever imagined that Umer would commit suicide. He was sensible with sound mental condition.”
But days before Umer’s campus death, his close friend, Neda Nazir from Bellow Pulwama was travelling from Gobindgarh to Chandigarh to receive his cousins from Chandigarh Airport. He had to drop them in DBU, a university near RIMT.
It was this routine outing which would create the campus commotion and clash.
“I and another girl were the only two Kashmiris in an Auto packed with locals,” Neda told The Himalayan Post.
“I was normally scrolling Instagram and some reels were playing songs. But 15 days after this, some senior boys came to my room and accused me of harassing a girl travelling in the Auto with me that day. One among them identified himself as her brother, and another her boyfriend.”
Neda confronted them saying that using social media in cab isn’t a crime. “A song playing in the background of a reel is not harassment and there’re no facts that I dedicated the song to that girl. They apologized and said it was a misunderstanding and the matter ended.”
But days later, another argument broke out with the same group when Umer’s another friend, Muzamil scolded the senior over the bad remarks – “How could a molvi harass women” – on Neda.
“The senior abused Muzamil,” Neda recalls. “In retaliation, Umer got up and pushed the senior away and told him to get out from the room. We understood his ego got hurt as he left sulking.”
After that incident, the relation between the Kashmiri trio strained with their seniors.
“Then 7th semester senior organized a reconciliatory morning meeting in the hostel lawn,” Neda details. “Without even talking, they started the physical scuffle. One among them abused and slapped me and the boy whom Umer had pushed started beating him again. They disappeared from the scene when the warden came to rescue the situation.”
On this physical scuffle, Umer decided to file two complains – one on the hostel desk and another in the police station, Neda says. But four days later, Umer withdrew that complaint.
Due to these campus clashes, Umer hardly ventured out. Suffering from bodyaches and mild fever, he remained confined to his hostel room, before suggested by his friends to go for a Covid test.
“We went to the hospital in Mandi where the doctor advised him to take rest and go for typhoid and other tests,” Neda says.
“I don’t know if he followed up on tests or not, but he was mostly sleeping a day before his death. He was humble, caring and helpful and took care of me last time when I was unwell. It was my turn to attend him. I asked him to take a bath and eat something but he said he’s not feeling good and wanted to rest.”
At 10:30pm, on September 12, after coming out of his room, he went to have a brief chat with his friends. “After wishing us goodnight, I told him to stay but he said he will sleep in his room. After that, we locked the room and slept,” Neda recalls.
With the daybreak, everyone was wearing a mournful face over the sudden and shocking departure of the young romantic bubbling with life.
“I don’t know what transpired in the night,” Neda sobs. “We lost a gem who was like a parent to me in the campus.”