Five women paraded naked for witchcraft

Patna, Oct. 19: In a disturbing throwback to medieval barbarity, five women were paraded naked and forced to consume human excreta in a Jharkhand village on Sunday, after the perpetrators branded them as witches. Five of the 11 accused named in an FIR were arrested on Monday.

The shocking incident took place in the village of Patharghatia under Palajori police station in Deoghar district. The five hapless women were first stripped and then taken to a nearby open field to be paraded and beaten up in front of hundreds of villagers, many of them having reached from nearby villages. The perpetrators included six women, the police said.

The victims — Sushila Kumharin, Sagiran Biwi, Hafeezan Biwi, Sujan Biwi and Gulnar Biwi — were reportedly forced to consume human excreta. Kumharin was touched on her face with a smouldering incense stick and suffered burns. Three of the five victims are widows.

“The villagers prima facie seemed to have worked as per the instructions of a local witchdoctor. The victims were tortured publicly and asked to confess that they were witches. We are looking for six of the accused who are absconding,” said the Palajori police station in-charge Rambabu Mandal.

He and BDO Anmol Kumar Singh had reached the spot shortly after the atrocities started, and stopped it from getting worse.

The women were so badly beaten up that they were unable to speak when the police asked them to narrate the whole incident for an FIR on Sunday. There is currently an atmosphere of fear and gloom in the village, said sources.