Witch-hunting: India
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Witch-hunts
Murders for witchcraft, 1999-2015
INDIA STILL KILLS AROUND 100 `WITCHES' EVERY YEAR, Nov 07 2016 : The Times of India
The Times of India
India, which considers itself a modern nation on the threshold of global power status, is still hunting down `witches', the most recent being the murder of two women in Assam. Since 1999, when National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) started collecting data on such deaths, more than 2,600 have been murdered on this count
In Jharkhand
The Times of India, Aug 16 2015
Vishant Agarwala
Mandar (Ranchi district)
Could the recent lynching of five women accused of practising `black magic' in rural Jharkhand be planned murder? Sunday Times investigates
Kanjiya Maraitoli is now a ghost village, with a pall of last week's horror hanging heavy over its 40-odd mud houses. The grisly mass murder of five “witches“ on the night of August 7 has touched every home here -every household has either a victim or an accused. As of Wednesday , 31 people from the village with a population of about 200 have been arrested. Several others have run away , afraid of police action.
Taking a detour from NH-75, about 40km from Ranchi, the first thing one sees is a group of young children -including an infant -leaving the village with their belongings. The kids are led by Khushbu Tigga, the niece of Bipin Khalkho, whose death due to jaundice triggered an unprecedented witch-hunt. Every adult member of the Khalkho family is behind bars and the kids are heading to another village to live with their relatives.
Even in Mandar, one of the more d e ve l o p e d b l o c k s i n r u r a l Jharkhand, superstition runs deep -the ill prefer to visit a `bhagat' (witch doctor) instead of a hospital.The little ones are convinced that the five dead women were witches. “We know they were up to no good. There were times when we found Etwariya Khalkho staring at us through the window at night. `Go to sleep or I'll suck your soul out', she'd tell us,“ says Khushbu. “She is responsible for my uncle's death,“ she adds, before heading out of the village.
Little Khushbu is one of the few people who'll talk about what happened that night. Every other person was apparently either drunk or asleep. “I can hardly see and hear,“ says an elderly tribal as he walks past. “I have no idea about what happened. I only came to know about the incident when I woke up the next morning.“
After a bit more cajoling, an elderly couple blame the five women for most of the deaths and diseases that have taken place in the village over the past 12 years. Some even hold their “dark magic“ responsible for the death of their cattle. “Etwariya was seen near a cemetery on Friday night.She definitely was a witch,“ mumbles Somra Khalkho, as his wife nudges him to keep quiet.
Karamdev Khalkho, son of one of the victims, Madni, said a few villagers had visited Etwariya's home and accused her of practising black magic two days before the lynching. “Her two sons assured the villagers that they would not stop their mother from being punished if they could prove the charges,“ says Karamdev . “None of the other women, including my mother, had any inkling that they were being targeted.“
Even Jacinta Khalkho's son Anil, an Army jawan posted in Himachal Pradesh, had no idea about the ac cusations against his mother. “The entire village would visit my house whenever I was on a vacation,“ Anil says. “Bottles of rum from the army canteen were always a coveted commodity here and I brought several of them for the villagers. I never thought these same people would murder my mother.“
There is, however, a lot more to the case than meets the eye. Experts in tribal traditions say this was not a usual case of a witch-hunt. Thousands of women have been killed on the stake over the past few decades, but usually it is one, or at the most two, women who are attacked at a given time. “There has not been a case of five women being killed together in the past 25 years,“ says Prem Chand, founding member of Free Le gal Aid Committee and an anti-witchhunt crusader.
J N Oraon, former mukhiya of Mandar village and an activist working to eliminate witch-hunts, says: “Also, unlike most such cases, these women had no idea that they would be targeted. The village committee usually first warns the `witches'.Some are given an ultimatum to leave the area, while some are forced to eat faeces or stripped and paraded. Hardly any woman branded a witch is killed without a prior warning.“
Villagers say the victims were not over-friendly with each other and were not even neighbours. Also, the five women did not meet the `criteria' that brands a woman a witch. “Generally , the woman is either a widow or has lost at least one of her sons -they have to `eat up' their closest male relative,“ says Premchand Ekka, a local leader and the husband of the village mukhiya. “But only two of the five were widows and none of them had a son who had died.“
The police admit the women would have approached them had they been taunted or harassed in the past and felt they were in any sort of danger. R N Singh, officer in charge of Man dar police station who is investi gating the case, said, “The police station is barely a kilometre from the village, and we reached the spot within minutes after we got the information that a few women were dragged out of their houses and taken to the village assembly . By the time we reached the spot, all the five were dead. It seems that the murders were planned and executed within a couple of hours.“
Whatever the investigation concludes, the village will not get over the horrors of that night anytime soon.Even the police are shocked by the macabre celebrations around the five mangled bodies. “The dead-drunk villagers were sitting in a circle around the bodies listening to Nagpuri music when we reached the spot around midnight,“ says Singh. “The villagers did not let us take the bodies until next morning -they wanted the neighbouring villages to see what the fate of other witches would be."- (With Sanjay Ojha and Alok K N Mishra)
2014-17; 183 killed in Jharkhand
December 2017: The Times of India
As many as 183 women were killed in Jharkhand over the past four years in reported cases of lynching for allegedly practising witchcraft, the home ministry informed the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. Citing information provided by the Jharkhand police, minister of state for home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir said in a written reply that 42 women were killed in the state till November this year after being branded as witches, as compared to 44 in 2016, 51in 2015 and 46 in 2014.
2014: 156 killed in India
The Times of India, Mar 17, 2016
Witch-hunts killed 156 in India in 2014
For those who think witch-hunts are a thing of the past in India, here is the stark reality. Witchcraft was the motive cited for as many as 127 murders committed between 2012 and 2014 in Jharkhand alone. Replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday , minister of state for home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary quoted National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data to state that 26, 54 and 47 cases of “murder for witchcraft“ were reported in Jharkhand in 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively.
As per NCRB data for 2014, tribal-dominated Jharkhand accounted for over 30% of India's “murders for witchcraft“, which stand at 156. Odisha, another state with a high concentration of tribals, reported 32 such murders, followed by MP with 24, and Chhattisgarh with 16.
2014: state-wise killing for “Witchcraft”
The Times of India, Aug 20 2015
Deeptiman Tiwary
156 killed in 2014 for `witchcraft'
As many as 156 women were killed across India for allegedly practicing witchcraft, while 28 people became victims of honour killing in 2014. The year also saw 68 political murders, and 44 died in caste conflict. Curiously , only 12 people were murdered for communal reasons in the year. Love affairs led to over 1,300 murders. These are part of the annual crime report published by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) which for the first time has recorded motives behind murders under various new categories.
According to the data, personal vendetta is the biggest reason for committing murder resulting in over 2900 killings in 2014. It is followed by property dispute as being the reason for over 2,700 killings. Love affairs are the third biggest killers followed by dowry and illicit relationships.
The data show that states with significant tribal popula ion or general backwardness have more killings of women accused of witchcraft. Most number of women killed with his motive were in Jharkhand (47), Odisha (32), Madhya Pradesh (24) and Chhattisgarh (16). Along with Gujarat (10), these states account for close to 90% of all such murders.
The most curious data is with regard to honour killings.Contrary to popular perception, most honour killings in 2014 were reported from Madhya Pradesh (7), followed by Punjab (5) and Maharashtra (5). The usual suspects, Haryana and UP have recorded just one case each. J&K has reported three such cases while Gujarat and Puducherry each have witnessed two such killings.
Most murders for love affairs were reported from UP (300) followed by Tamil Nadu (239). Odisha reported the maximum dowry deaths at (413) followed by West Bengal (290).
The data also show that as many 201 women were killed after rape. UP reported most number of such cases (54) followed by Maharashtra (21).
Refuges for women branded ‘witches’
Khasiapara (‘Dainigaon’), Assam
Syeda Ambia Zaman, Dec 9, 2019 Times of India
From: Syeda Ambia Zaman, Dec 9, 2019 Times of India
On a cold winter night, Kamani Rabha was roused from sleep by an angry mob. She had been invoking “evil spirits” with her “black magic”, they said. She had to leave, she was told. There was no room for negotiation. Before Kamani could say anything, she was forcibly carried outside her village of Konapara in Meghalaya’s West Garo Hills and dumped. That was 40 years ago.
Kamani, now 62, found refuge in Khasiapara, a dusty village on the western side of the Assam-Meghalaya border. Over the years, Khasiapara has turned into safe haven for women like her, slowly getting the name ‘Dainigaon’ — the sinister village of witches.
Till the 1950s, Khasiapara was just another forest by the serpentine Ajagar river. No one knows who the first to make a home out of the forest clearing was. It lies ensconced by villages dominated by the Rabha and Garo communities, which continue to report the highest cases of “witch-hunting”.
In large swathes of the region, anything that went wrong — bad harvest, natural calamity, outbreak of disease, death in the family — and needed an explanation would in the absence of immediate perceptible causes be pinned on the evil designs of a witch, or in some cases sorcerer, who practised black magic. The “hunt” would, in some cases, mean the “witch” was chased away or, in others, raped or killed. While many died, some disappeared and others like Kamani found their way to Khasiapara.
The story of how Kamani got there has a touch of the sublime. “I crossed the river at night. For days, I wandered through forests, surviving on grass and water, not knowing where I was headed. There were wild cats, elephants and leopards roaming the jungles. After nine days, I found my sister Anupa, too, on the run after she was thrown out of our house. Days later, we met another woman, Sibani, who had also been chased away by witch-hunters,” she said. The sorority of banished “witches” pressed on. Their quest for sanctuary ended in Khasiapara.
Twelve “witches” live in the village with their families now. They grow their own food and step out once a month to exchange their produce for rice. Decades of inflicted isolation have hardened into wary seclusion. The children don’t go to school. The elders would rather be left alone.
“My mother, Zabra, was chased out of our village because two people got typhoid. People spread rumours that they had seen her scattering something in the backyards of the people who got sick. One of them died. A panchayat was convened and it decided that my mother had two choices – leave or kill herself. She went away the same night,” said Jitai Rabha, 45. Jitai, her sister and brother were also made to leave the village of Dogordaha soon after. That was 1995. She was 21 then. Now, her mother is no more and she lives with her husband, two daughters and grandsons.
Often, there was more to the “witch-hunts” than just superstition. Kamani had spoken out against the sexual assault of a minor by men in her village before she was forced out. Anupa, her sister, was hounded out by villagers who occupied their house. Sibani, their companion in the journey to Khasiapara, was branded a witch after her husband died of a disease and their house and land were up for grabs.
But do they ever wonder if things have changed back home? “I don’t know, but this here is safe,” said Jitai. She may have a point.
Since 2011, Assam has seen the deaths of 107 people in “witch-hunting” cases – most of which were in Kokrajhar (22), Chirang (19) and Udalguri (11) districts, all under the Bodoland Territorial Area Districts. The state today is among the few in India with a law to counter it. The Assam Witch Hunting (Prohibition, Prevention and Protection) Bill, 2015 makes “witch-hunting” non-bailable and non-compoundable.
“The problem is that there is very little awareness about the Act. It came into effect in October last year – seven cases have been reported since then. Even police do not always know about the provisions. Any tangible change will take a long time,” said Dibyajyoti Saikia, an antiwitch hunting activist. Until then, Khasiapara will keep getting “fugitives” who make it their home.
Steps against witch-hunting
Odisha fights witch hunts/ 2019
Debabrata Mohapatra and Naresh Chandra Pattanayak, March 15, 2019: The Times of India
From: Satyasundar Barik, A memorial to remember Odisha’s witch-hunt victims, February 28, 2019: The Hindu
Nowhere in India is there a monument dedicated to men and women who've been killed, maimed and humiliated after being called sorcerers
Dukhini Munda still shivers, his voice breaking often, as he recounts the horrific attack on his mother Nathi Munda in Urumunda area of Keonjhar in September 2017. “My mother was cooking. I was ploughing in the backyard when I heard a noise. As I rushed inside, I found three men from our adjoining village dragging my mother outside the house. They were armed with wooden planks and yelling ‘dahani’ (witch) at her. They smashed my mother’s head. She died on the spot,” Munda said.
The attackers blamed the old woman for the death of a 4-year-old. The child had been down with fever for several weeks. Later police sources said the men who killed Nathi had heard at a local market that she practised black magic and that her "evil design finished the child off".
Munda said, “I do not know what prompted them to suspect that my mother was a witch. We hardly knew the family of the little boy. All the accused were arrested within two weeks. They are still in jail.”
Until a few days ago, Kumudini Barik of Keonjhar district knew that memorials were normally built to honour "great persons" for their contribution to society. Barik, who was attacked recently after being branded a witch, had never imagined that one day a memorial would come up to remember all those who had been killed on suspicion of being a witch (also called 'gunia' by some).
But that's exactly what the Odisha government has done. In the first ever such gesture -- and perhaps an admission of guilt -- a 7 ft-high granite statue, built on February 27 and installed at the campus of the Keonjhar district police, stands testimony to the deep-rooted social evil still prevalent in large swathes of the state in this day and age. It is also an attempt by the district police to sensitise people on the deadly superstition. The memorial is the only one of its kind in India.
Keonjhar district superintendent of police Jai Narayan Pankaj, who conceptualised the memorial, said witch hunts need to stop. "We have to change people’s perception towards blind and unreasonable faith and give dignity to victims and their families who are often looked down upon by society and ostracised," he said.
Witch-hunt victims dine with the police. Officials say they have been spreading awareness among tribals against the practice
Pankaj, a 2005-batch IPS officer, added, “When I joined as the Keonjhar SP in April 2018, I was shocked to find that crimes relating to witch hunting were alarming. Though Keonjhar is rich in minerals and natural resources, several tribal-dominated and backward villages are still in the grip of black magic. I did some research by reading books and gathering details from the internet on the modus operandi of witch hunts, also found in Assam, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Then I thought of the memorial in addition to ongoing awareness drives aimed at checking the social menace.”
The statue itself has a wall around it with names of many of the victims who died in attacks. “Police investigations revealed that the victims were never 'witches'. They never practised black magic," Pankaj said, adding, "For strange and mysterious reasons, locals sometimes suspect elderly women and their family members to be witches, assaulting, maiming and killing them. In some cases, elderly men, too, were targeted after being branded sorcerers.”
The memorial is the only one of its kind in India. The wall around the statue has names of victims who died
On a few occasions, the young weren't spared either. In a sensational witch-hunt murder in Keonjhar district on July 13, 2015 six members of a family, including four children, were hacked to death by local residents at Lahanda village. In 2018, 73 witchcraft-related cases were reported across Odisha, out of which 18 were murders. Another 99 cases, including 18 murders, were recorded in the state in 2017. A year before that, around 25 persons were killed in witch-hunts. Police across districts have now been strictly asked to accord priority to detection of the crime. Significantly, the state government promulgated the Odisha Prevention of Witch Hunting Act in 2013.
From: Debabrata Mohapatra and Naresh Chandra Pattanayak, March 15, 2019: The Times of India
From: Debabrata Mohapatra and Naresh Chandra Pattanayak, March 15, 2019: The Times of India
While districts like Mayurbhanj, Sundargarh and Rayagada are vulnerable to witch hunting, Keonjhar is the worst affected. More than 50 people have been killed in the district in the past 10 years. Last year, the district accounted for 12 of the 18 people murdered for "sorcery" across the state.
The horror of being branded a witch – police investigations reveal the victims never practised black magic
Those who have been fighting against this say that lack of education among tribals plays a huge part in prevalence of this deadly persecution. “In rural areas, instances of women facing humiliation and brutalisation after being branded witches are common. Government’s awareness drives are yet to yield results,” said Debendra Sutar, secretary of Odisha Rationalist Society, an organisation working for eradication of witch-hunt in the state.
Duskar Barik, secretary of KIRDTI, another voluntary body, said, “We have been spreading awareness among tribals against the practice. The social evil has been checked to a great extent over the years. Earlier, the victims were paraded half-naked and forced to eat human waste. Those were terrifying days.”
Kartika Sahu, a social activist said “Blind faith still prevails in many pockets in hilly areas where people rely on sorcerers to cure illness. Awareness campaigns still elude some areas” Sahu said.
From 18th to 21st century... killings continue
The earliest evidence of witch hunts in India are the Santhal witch trials in 1792 in Singhbhum district of Chhotanagpur division in British India (located in present- day Jharkhand). Santhals, an adivasi population, believed in witches, who had the power to kill people by feeding on their entrails and cause fevers in cattle, among other evils. According to the adivasis, the cure was the elimination of these witches
Even today, India is among the few countries where this type of persecution still continues, Papua New Guinea and some sub-Saharan African countries being the others. Jharkhand (523), Odisha (465) and Andhra Pradesh (392) had the highest witchcraft-related murders between 2001 and 2016
Some distance away in Jhumpura, Amina Naik, 67, can't thank the police enough for the memorial. "I have for years been living a life of social stigma after being called a witch and attacked by miscreants in 2017. I was in tears when top officers allowed me to sit with them and dine with them during launch of the memorial,” she said.
“My mother Kaintha Naik was injured after being attacked in February last year by some locals who suspected her of being a witch," Suresh Naik of Champua block in Keonjhar said. "We can never erase from our minds the hurt and humiliation we went through. But this memorial has brought us some solace. Perhaps women will have it better here in the years to come."
States with laws in place to tackle witch hunting
Odisha Prevention of Witch hunting Act, 2013
Bihar Prevention of Witch (Dayan) Practices Act, 1999
Jharkhand Prevention of Witch (Daain) Practices Act, 2001
Chhattisgarh Tonahi Pratadna Nivaran Act, 2005
Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013 Karnataka Prevention and Eradication of Inhuman Evil Practices and Black Magic, 2017
Rajasthan Prevention of Witch-Hunting Act, 2015
Assam Witch-Hunting (Prohibition, Prevention and Protection) law 2015
2019/ Witch-Hunting Memorial in Odisha
Satyasundar Barik, A memorial to remember Odisha’s witch-hunt victims, February 28, 2019: The Hindu
The State loses an average of 70 lives annually on account of the heinous practice
A memorial for witch-hunt victims may sound odd, but the Odisha police have chosen this innovative way to sensitise people to shun the heinous practice.
The witch-hunt victims’ memorial, said to be the first of its kind in the country, was opened to the public in the district headquarter town of Keonjhar on Wednesday.
While it has a symbolic statue in memory of all the innocents who were killed after being branded as witch, the names of the victims have been etched on a granite stone.
State Director General of Police R.P. Sharma inaugurated the statue in the presence of 300 witch-hunt victims and members of self-help groups.
In order to sensitise the public, Mr. Sharma and top officials of Keonjhar sat with women who had been branded as witches over dinner and discussed measures to rid society of the menace.
“The inhuman practice of witch-hunting prevails in several States, including Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Assam, mainly in the tribal areas. The social evil has long vanished from most parts of the world, barring India and some African countries,” said Keonjhar Superintendent of Police Jai Narayan Pankaj.
“In India, 134 people, majority of them being women, were killed after being branded as witch. In Odisha last year, 18 people were killed. In Keonjhar, more than 50 people have been killed in the last 10 years,” said Mr. Pankaj.
According to the Odisha Rationalist Society, an independent body of rationalists, the problem is much bigger.
“According to newspaper reports and our own field verifications, Odisha loses an average of 70 lives on account of witch-hunting every year. In the last two months, 10 murders have been committed. While five members of a family were wiped out in Sundargarh district in January, three were killed in Rayagada a couple of days ago,” said ORS secretary Debendra Sutar.
A decorated van with awareness messages, publicity material and copies of the Odisha Prevention of Witch-hunting Act, 2013, was also flagged off. It will move in the interior pockets of Keonjhar to raise awareness about the social evil.
