I was shattered after reading this news article couple of day’s back, in some village in Ranchi, three men chopped parents of 14 year old kid in front of her eyes on the charges of practicing witchcraft. The same news instigated me to dug up and read more on the subject. I came across some more horrified cases which confirmed disgraceful occults prevalent in most of the villages in Jharkhand, Assam, Bihar and West Bengal.
45 year old Sukhmani Barla of Arhara village of Kamdara block near Ranchi was chopped by her neighbour Bagda Munda alleging her of being a witch. Bagda Munda’s daughter Saniya Munda had been suffering from illness for last three years and finally she died on January 2. When Bagda Munda approached the Ojha (spirit healer) to know the reason of death, the Ojha informed him that his neighbour Sukhmani Munda has killed his daughter with her black magic. Finally, Bagda Munda chopped her with an axe and was thrown behind the bars for committing a heinous crime but he is not ashamed of his act.
Sushila Devi, 45 year old , described how she and four other village women, mostly widows suspected of being witches, were beaten, paraded naked and forced to eat excreta in Patharghatia village in Deoghar district, Jharkhand on October 17, 2009.
In all the above cases, the women were suspected of being witches!(“dayans” is what they call it). It is the backwardness and illiteracy of such villages which provides a fertile ground for breeding such idiotic superstitions.
It was astonishing to read “test of witchhood” rampant in most of this villages; A woman suspicious of practicing Wicca will be asked to take out a coin dipped in a vessel filled with boiling oil. If her hands are burnt, her witchhood is confirmed, otherwise she is declared innocent.
Branding woman a witch is a common ploy to grab a land, settle scores or also to punish her for turning down the sexual advances. Most of the women falls for such trap are widows, so called unwanted member of the family. They are humiliated, harassed, beaten up and (in some cases) killed not only in front of their families, but in front of thousand other villager, who witness the show like numbskulls.
In most of the cases help from police or judicial/administrative system is out of the reach of such illiterate and helpless woman.
It is my privilege to state; Union woman and child development minister Krishna Tirath saying recently that there would soon be a law against witch-hunting, however how far will it be implemented and enforced successfully is question in itself.