Story highlights Sana Bhat's family had to sell their land to raise money for leukemia treatment

Her story inspired a campaign which attracted 50,000 donors within days

Mir Farhat is a Srinagar based independent journalist and a member of 101Reporters, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Srinagar, India (CNN) When 24-year-old Sana Bhat was diagnosed with leukemia, her family was devastated.

"Sana was beautiful, as if God had made her with his own hands," says her sister Sadiya. "Being the youngest of the three siblings, we loved her most. We tried everything to save Sana till her last breath. But we could not save her."

Though the disease claimed Sana's life in February, her story inspired a Kashmiri crowd-sourced charity to help patients suffering from cancer and other diseases requiring expensive treatment.

Sana, a Kashmiri studying hotel management in the north Indian state of Haryana, had been diagnosed with leukemia in April 2015. Her family had to sell their land in Srinagar, capital of Jammu and Kashmir, to raise money for her treatment in New Delhi.

"Sana was feeling better for five months till August when she suffered a relapse," Sadiya recalls. "When I was in the hospital in October 2016, I met an attendant of a cancer patient who was from Kashmir and narrated him the entire story. He suggested we put an appeal on Facebook.

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