76-year old Dhiraji Devi was declared dead in 1985 but she only found out after a decade. She returned home after retiring from her job in a different village to realise that her brother-in-law had declared her dead in the family-registry and her share of land had been transferred to the mother-in-law. This is just one of such cases in Azamgarh. Thousands live in such limbos. They may have been declared dead by law, but are fighting to prove otherwise. While some cases are clerical errors, others can be motivated by aims such as land grabbing. In 2007, the National Human Rights Commission recorded that 335 such cases were rectified and action initiated against errant officials.
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