Hyderabad: Telangana state has the fourth highest number of murders caused by witchcraft, banamati, in the country. In 2015, 14 people were killed for practising witchcraft, six more than in 2014.
This was revealed in Parliament based on National Crime Records Bureau data. These murders come under 'cases reported under murder and culpable homicide not amounting to murder for the purpose of witchcraft'.
The reply was in answer to a question on branding of women as witches by Sirajuddin Ajmal, Member of Parliament from Assam.
Jharkhand has the highest number of such cases (32), followed by Odisha (26) and Madhya Pradesh (20).
The Telangana state government claims to have set up 436 mandal-level Social Action Committees to tackle social issues, including witchcraft, but they don’t seem to be too effective.
In Andhra Pradesh, one such murder occurred in 2015 and two in 2014. The all-India figure stands at 134 in 2015.
Mr T.V. Rao, national convener of the Jana Vignana Vedika, which fights superstitious beliefs, said, “Due to improper access to healthcare, unhygienic surroundings and lack of awareness of health safety, people contract diseases and die, especially children who succumb to diseases like diarrhoea. When such an incident occurs angry and superstitious mobs target anyone in the village who claims to be involved in ‘witchcraft’, alleging that the person must have done black magic which resulted in the death of their loved one.” Mr Rao says that in some cases, upper caste folk accuse a person from a lower caste of being a witch and lynch the latter to take revenge in personal matters.
“With Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao conducting yagnas, gruha praveshams, promoting astrology and vastu, one cannot expect that people in villages will develop a scientific temper,” he said.
The lack of scientific knowledge is an important factor in these murders. In Rudrur, Nizamabad, last year a mentally unstable woman of 65 was murdered for being a witch. The woman was homeless and used to roam the village streets. One day she placed lemons outside the house of a village leader. She was beaten up for practising witchcraft. When she did the same thing again, the villagers broke all her teeth with stones. She bled to death in a hospital.
