Srinagar, July 30 -- By Syed Sammar Mehdi

A Gujjar family in a forest hamlet in Central Kashmir spent last week doing something they hoped they would never have to do again: packing their belongings into sacks and moving them to a relative's house, just in case.

They had already lost part of their land to the Forest Department once before.

Word had lately spread through the settlement that officials were back in the area to retrieve more forest land, and this time nobody wanted to wait and find out what would happen next.

That fear is spreading through forest communities across North, Central and South Kashmir right now, and it comes from a simple, painful contradiction.

A national law passed in 2006 was supposed to protect these fam...