When Newni Ekka was
pushed into the river by a group of men, she was stark naked. Villagers
stripped her of what little she had to cover herself, shaved off her
hair and branded her with an iron rod. She was a witch, they said. She
had to die.
Seeing there was no way she could swim against
the tide, the crowd returned, content that they had murdered a bad spirit.
She was still flailing her arms, hoping someone would save her from
a horrible death. But in Sundergarh district of Orissa there’s no
mercy for witches.
In another
village, Alalpaka, people still talk of Duleswar Barik who went about
killing six family members in the belief that they had turned into witches.
As he
slit their throats and blood dripped onto his hands, sticking the knife
to his fingers, he announced with a crazed conviction that God had asked
him to do so.
That was
in 2003 and he was sentenced to death by a lower court for the murders.
The case is now pending in high court.
That’s
just the way it is in large parts of Orissa, a place haunted by poverty,
bludgeoned by natural calamities and terrorised by the
paranormal. This is why, perhaps, such behaviour comes easy here.
Bhibhisan
Naik, a priest in a Mayurbhanj temple was brutally killed by Nandu Nayak
because someone told him to do so. Nandu’s wife had delivered a blind
girl and a local fortune teller told him the priest, who was alleged
to be a witch, was responsible for it. That was enough for an enraged
Nandu to stick a dagger into Bhibhisan and pull the poor man’s guts
out.
It’s
an endless blood-and-gore list in the tribal districts of Sundergarh,
Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar.
The NGOs
have been ineffective and the police helpless, mostly because there
are no witnesses and complaints are rare. Statistics available with
police in these districts say 93 people have been tortured and killed
in the last three to four years,all charged with practicing witch-craft.
Interestingly,
men as well as women can be regarded as witches here, the penalty equally
venomous and bloody for both. In Mayurbhanj, more men have died because
of this than women.
“Lack
of education, proper health care facilities, mainly in
the interior, and a culture that fears and revels in black magic is
responsible for the deaths,” says Sundergarh SP Y Jetua. The
Sundergarh police now has launched a special programme to eradicate
witch hunting.
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