Blood
gushed out in rapid spurts from the woman’s head. A thick red, dark.
Her lifeless body, still warm, had already been bludgeoned by others.
Prakash Jamdade was waiting for his turn. To drive nails into
her forehead. That’s when the crematorium workers caught him.
At the
time of his arrest, Jamdade looked confused, even disgusted with the
police. He felt he had done no crime. He felt this is what should be
done with young women who die, especially if the death comes close after
childbirth. For Jamdade and his neo-Buddhist community members, it is
only logical to drive nails deep into the foreheads of dead women. This,
they feel, stops the spirit from turning evil.
The nails,
they believe, also become a barrier when the women want to return as ghosts and haunt those they
disliked during their earthly days.
The police were
recently rattled, some were plain terrified, when they came to know
that such a practice was being followed by a Buddhist community in Beed
district of Maharashtra. It was in May this year, in Pune, at the Bopodi
crematorium that the horrifying ritual came exposed.
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THEY DO
SOMETHING
HORRIBLE WITH
DEAD YOUNG
WOMEN HERE.
IT’S GOOD THAT
THE DEAD FEEL
NO PAIN.
TABOO TALES |
Workers at the
crematorium were stunned to see a man pull out a half-inch nail from
his pocket, ready to hammer it into the head of 29-year old Leela Prakash
Sasane. There were already a dozen nails driven across her blood-soaked
temple, turning her body into a canvas of malevolent art.
A sculpture
that was as hideous as it was bloody. Jamdade, of Bopkel, was aiming the nail at
the woman’s forehead when horrified crematorium workers stopped him. When the
police arrested the elderly Jamdade, who turned out to be some sort of a priest
in the community, under IPC section 297 (trespassing of burial places;
committing indignity to human corpse), he was both puzzled and offended.
“He even told
the court that he had performed three such ceremonies back in his hometown, Beed,
and that he did not understand why he was being arrested,” recounted Anil Bhise,
the BJP’s general secretary at Pune. According to the Pune police, Jamdade
during his interrogation told them that the ritual is commonly practised in Beed
district.
“We wrote to
the police commissioner and forced the police to take action against this evil
practice,” Bhise said, adding that the weird custom also dictates that nails be
hammered into the palms of dead women. Then, in a chilling routine the palms,
nailed and bleeding, are placed across the chest. The feet are brought together.
Anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar, president of the Andhashraddha
Nirmulan Samiti, said it was because of the widespread fear of ghosts among the
poor in this region that such a bizarre practice was being followed.
Those who know
about the community whisper that there is little anyone can do about it. The
nailers of Beed will, at least for now, continue to draw blood from their dead.
With a hammer and cold, half-inch nails.
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