Policemen in the Jharkhand village where five women were killed on witchcraft allegations
A day after five women were killed in a Jharkhand village on allegations of witchcraft, the Jharkhand police have formally arrested 25 people, all from the same village and charged them under sections of state's anti-witch craft law that could lead to nine years of imprisonment.
The police have also said that the villagers held a panchayat before the killings and took a collective decision to murder the women after the death a boy. The boy died of an illness a few days ago, but the villagers accuse the women of killing him.
Among those killed is a 45-year-old woman named Ittwari Khalko who had been living in the village for a long time. "There was a sudden knock on our door at night. Some people dragged her out and started beating her mercilessly. There was no time to react," said one of her relatives.
Killings on the suspicion of witchcraft have a fairly high occurrence in Jharkhand and in the past, many such instances have come to light in the state.
According to National Crime Bureau Records (NCRB), 2097 people have been killed across the country on allegations of witchcraft between 2000 and 2012 and 363 of those cases have been from Jharkhand. The state government figure, meanwhile, say that between 2011 and 2013, more than 400 people were killed and 2854 of such cases registered.
Jharkhand has had an anti-witchcraft law since 2001, but human rights activists say not much has been done on the ground to make the law effective, including creating social awareness about the issue.