Kuldhara - A haunted village near jaisalmer

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Kuldhara is inhabited by the rich and wealthy community of Paliwal brahmins. Kuldhara is the largest of a cluster of 84 villages that this community is spread out in. Involved in both agricultural trade and practice, as well as other businesses, the Paliwals contribute a substantial amount to the Jaisalmer kingdom’s coffers.
This is also the time when the Maharaja of Jaisalmer is only a titular head; the real power lies in the hands of his Prime Minister or Diwan, Salum Singh. The Diwan has a lecherous eye and one day this eye falls upon a Kuldhara village belle. He asks, no demands, to marry her. The girl’s father refuses as the Diwan is from a lower caste. The Diwan is furious and gives a 24-hour ultimatum to the girl’s father to change his mind or else…An emergency community council of the Paliwal Brahmins is convened and they arrive at a decision — to leave the area for ever immediately to avoid death and dishonour.
And so it came to happen that the residents of Kuldhara and the other 83 villages take what they can with them, bury the rest and leave their villages in the dead of the night, never to return. The people of Kuldhara also leave a curse behind that nobody would ever be able to live in the village ever again, and whoever tried to dig out the wealth would live to regret it.
Time passes. Days turn into weeks, months, years and then decades. A century goes by and then another. The elements take over and decay and ruin set in. Instead of humans, rats, snakes and desert foxes make the village their home. The ghosts of those who had been forced to abandon Kuldhara also return to the village after their deaths. By now, Kuldhara and its people have passed into folklore and have been forgotten by nearly everyone around. Only a few people from the surrounding villages go there occasionally, more out of curiosity than for any other reason. And then, one day in 1998 something happens to change all this.Two foreigners are seen wandering around in Kuldhara and digging out stuff from the houses in the village and putting them in their bags. The people who see them alert the local police, who arrive there to investigate. On searching the bags, gold and silver items are recovered. The foreigners are jailed, the local archaeology department is informed, etc. Suddenly Kuldhara is back in the news, and with this its potential as a tourist attraction is recognised and acknowledged.