[Reader-list] Elderly couple set themselves on fire after losing land - CNN-IBN

[Aditya Raj Kaul]

Elderly couple set themselves on fire after losing land

*Pawan Bali* <http://www.ibnlive.com/news/author/Pawan+Bali/> /
*CNN-IBN*<http://www.ibnlive.com/news/agency/CNN-IBN/>



[image: TRAGIC END: Ramanand, 72, and his wife Vaishno Devi had been
fighting for their land for the last five years.]

*TRAGIC END: Ramanand, 72, and his wife Vaishno Devi had been fighting for
their land for the last five years.*


*Jammu:* Hundred acres of land near the Amarnath shrine had entire Jammu and
Kashmir state burning last month. And on Thursday, an elderly Kashmiri
migrant couple set themselves on fire after losing their 22.5 acres of land,
allegedly due to encroachment.

Ramanand, 72, and his wife Vaishno Devi killed themselves in their house in
the Nagrota migrant camp. The couple had left Kashmir in 1989 and been
living in their one-room house for the last 19 years.

"He (Ramanand) had come from Srinagar and told me that his land was
encroached upon by neighbours and a tehsildar. He said a school had been
built there," Ramanand's friend, Moti Lal Bhat, said. "He wasn't given any
compensation for the land. He had been fighting for it for several years and
was extremely frustrated."

The couple had no children. Their closest friend, Gauri Singh, says that for
the last five years Ramanand had been regularly going to Kashmir to reclaim
his land in the Man'd Gori village of Kulgam.

"His petitions have been lying with administration, DCs, tehsildars, and
even relief commissioner for the last five years but no one has responded,"
Gauri said.

Such instances of land encroachment are not the first for Kashmiri migrants.
Recently, the state assembly even passed a bill to prevent encroachment.
Organisations have even been demanding that revenue records be digitalised
and posted on the web to prevent tampering. But before all that is
implemented, two lives have already been lost.

The incident is another reminder of the fact that land still remains an
emotional for those who left Kashmir.