An orchard owner in Budgam s Kani Dajan village surveys the damage. | Safwat Zargar
Mohammad Ahsan Wagay does not remember which day it happened. His memory is blurred by the shock. Sometime in the third week of November, a team of forest department officials arrived at Kani Dajan village in Central Kashmir’s Budgam district. They left behind a trial of destruction, cutting down hundreds of apple trees and damaging other crops on forest land occupied by village residents.
Wagay’s orchard was also flattened. “They axed around 200 of my apple trees,” he said. “They just came and felled our trees. They didn’t even give us a chance to uproot them on our own. When I went to my orchard, I wanted to cry.”