Click to play videoGuwahati: Witch-hunts are rampant in many parts of rural Assam and north Bengal and more than 400 people have been killed due to suspected witchcraft in the tea gardens and remote villages of the states over the past decade.
In the latest incident, a couple – branded as a witch pair – was hacked to death nearly a month ago.
Nineteen-year-old Baha Kisku recalls the gory night when her parents were killed by villagers.
“I was sleeping outside with my parents. When went to relieve myself, I heard some sounds and raised an alarm. They killed my father, then my mother. I shouted for help but saw them running away,” Baha says.
Extreme poverty and illiteracy has made the locals susceptible to superstitions and most killings are due to ignorance among the locals.
“There is no justification for killing innocent people, be it poverty or illiteracy,” says a doctor at the Kokrajhar Civil Hospital, R K Brahma.
With almost no medical facilities, villagers often resort to quacks or witch doctors for ailments.
But when the treatment fails, it's people like Baha's parents who end up paying a heavy price.
HISTORY OF WITCH HUNTS |
|
 The villagers stormed the house of the 55-year-old man in Assam's Kokrajhar district, just as the family finished dinner. |
| It was around the same time when Baha’s house was raided and her parents were killed. The area is dominated by Bodos, one of dozens of tribal groups in the restive northeast. |
| On September 15, four members of a family were hacked to death in Agartala in Tripura for allegedly practising witchcraft, police said. |
| A group of unidentified people armed with crude implements attacked the house of 50-year-old Krisnathang Hrangkhawl in Hrangkhawl Para village, 45 km west of capital Agartala. |
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