Tucson, Arizona Friday, 1 August 2003
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LUCKNOW, India - As far as the government is concerned, they're dead - and
they're not at all happy about it.
Calling themselves "the living dead," two dozen people held a last-rites
Hindu ceremony outside the State Assembly to draw attention to their plight.
All say unscrupulous relatives had them fraudulently declared dead to steal
their property. They've been struggling for years to get the government to rectify
their official standing.
"My son produced a fake death certificate to revenue officials and grabbed
my 12 acres of property. The government still refuses to recognize me as alive,"
said Rashida Bibi, 62, declared dead in 1993.
"I have been certified a living person by my village head, but still the
revenue officials refuse to recognize me as alive," she said.
India's bureaucrats are notorious for doing little work, and corruption is rampant.
Many officials and clerks refuse to accept a claim or even talk to a petitioner
without receiving a bribe.
The "living dead," having been cheated out of their property, cannot
afford to pay bribes or even legitimate fees to get their cases dealt with.
Lal Bihari, president of the Association of the Living Dead, estimated 35,000
people in Uttar Pradesh state have been wrongly certified as dead.
"We have knocked on doors of government officials and police. No one is
ready to recognize us as living persons because revenue records declare us dead,"
he said during the protest Wednesday.