In a state where massacres of people fail to make news any more, a 60-year-old man is risking his life and contesting elections on an unusual agenda - to stop the killing of trees. Chaudhary Mohammad Sakhi of the Gujjar tribe lives in Sangdi Balla village, located on a hilltop overlooking this north Kashmir frontier township. He is contesting as an Independent candidate from Baramula, where 14 others are locked in fierce electoral battle. "My village is right in the jungle and I am witness to this loot daily. I believe the protection of these trees is related to our future. It is as important as the lives of human beings. If there are no forest, there will be no Kashmir," he says. "And the way the Government's Forest Department and jungle smugglers have woven a nexus, Kashmir's greenery is a few years' guest."