Srinagar, July 18 -- By Mohammad Amin Mir

Picture a plot of land that technically belongs to hundreds of families at once. Nobody owns it individually, so in practice, almost nobody defends it.

That's the trap Shamilat land has fallen into across Jammu and Kashmir, and it explains why government property meant for grazing animals, burying the dead, and building village pathways keeps shrinking, wall by wall and shed by shed.

The land is officially protected under Section 4 as government property held for the collective good. On the ground, that protection has turned out to be paper-thin.

A boundary creeps forward a few feet here, a structure rises without permission there, and over the years these small violations harden into permanen...