Monday, 20 June , 2005, 10:37
Azamgarh (Uttar Pradesh): Can there be a greater travesty of life than being declared dead when alive and kicking?
A visit to the Uttar Pradesh town of Azamgarh can certainly serve as an eye-opener, for here there is a motley group of pensioners, widows and orphaned children who are fighting to convince the local authorities that they are in fact, alive.
A heady concoction of greed, corruption, melodrama, death and rebirth, their lives may inspire a perfect Hollywood thriller. This group are victims of a long-practised land swindle racket.
Greedy relatives often bribe officials into declaring them dead to grab what is many times less than an acre of land. Most of these people have been 'dead' for close to a decade and lost their entire life-savings in fighting legal battles to prove their mortal status.
Harassed and broken, they have courted arrest, tried to contest elections for Parliament, kidnapped children, issued threats of murder, insulted judiciary and even local legislators -- all to prove that they are alive, but without any luck.
Ram Lalak Yadav, is one such "dead man". He has been fighting to prove that he is alive for the last 12 years and claims that his brother declared him dead when he was working in another city. "My brother declared me dead and took away my land. They struck off my name from the register. I have been fighting the case since 1993. The commissioner's office had declared me alive but they (his brothers) filed a case in the lower court, where I was again declared dead. Now, my case has been shifted to the Allahabad High Court," he said.
Phool Chand, another petitioner, has a similar tale to tell. "I was declared dead by my brothers who wanted to take away my property. The matter is in the high court and so far no decision has been taken," he said.
Azamgarh (Uttar Pradesh): Can there be a greater travesty of life than being declared dead when alive and kicking?
A visit to the Uttar Pradesh town of Azamgarh can certainly serve as an eye-opener, for here there is a motley group of pensioners, widows and orphaned children who are fighting to convince the local authorities that they are in fact, alive.
A heady concoction of greed, corruption, melodrama, death and rebirth, their lives may inspire a perfect Hollywood thriller. This group are victims of a long-practised land swindle racket.
Greedy relatives often bribe officials into declaring them dead to grab what is many times less than an acre of land. Most of these people have been 'dead' for close to a decade and lost their entire life-savings in fighting legal battles to prove their mortal status.
Harassed and broken, they have courted arrest, tried to contest elections for Parliament, kidnapped children, issued threats of murder, insulted judiciary and even local legislators -- all to prove that they are alive, but without any luck.
Ram Lalak Yadav, is one such "dead man". He has been fighting to prove that he is alive for the last 12 years and claims that his brother declared him dead when he was working in another city. "My brother declared me dead and took away my land. They struck off my name from the register. I have been fighting the case since 1993. The commissioner's office had declared me alive but they (his brothers) filed a case in the lower court, where I was again declared dead. Now, my case has been shifted to the Allahabad High Court," he said.
Phool Chand, another petitioner, has a similar tale to tell. "I was declared dead by my brothers who wanted to take away my property. The matter is in the high court and so far no decision has been taken," he said.
District authorities, however, deny any such case. "In my knowledge, there is no such case of anybody being declared dead. Nobody has come complained," said Raja Ram Upadhyay, Azamgarh's District Magistrate.
Estimates say at least 10,000 living people are declared dead in Uttar Pradesh government's official records.
ANI
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