Mob believed family was responsible for infants falling sick.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BENGALURU: An angry mob in Odisha killed a couple and their four children for allegedly practicing witchcraft that made children in the village sick, said police on Monday.
According to police, five members of the village, who are believed to be relatives, broke into the mud house of the family with axe and murdered them, believing that the victims were doing witchcraft to unleash illness among infants in the village.
Kavita Jalan, District Superintendent of Police, said the two surviving children of the couple alerted the authorities about what happened and when the police reached the spot on Monday morning the house was in a pool of blood with mutilated bodies scattered all around. Police found an abandoned axe used for the murder and a boy who was still breathing.
Jalan told Reuters “The eight-year-old boy was found by police gasping between the dead bodies”. On further investigation, police concluded that the five members who committed the crime fled the village.
The age-old practice of labeling someone a witch is still prevalent in some Indian villages, largely among the tribal community where there exist a law of its own. According to the National Crime Record Bureau, there were 160 cases of murder linked with witch hunts in 2013 and 199 in 2012.
In another case, in Odisha, a man was beaten to death and later burned for allegedly performing sorcery and his remains were recovered in the Rayagada district on Monday.
“People believe in superstition because they do not have health care. They are uneducated. Unless we provide them these basic facilities, the situation will not improve,” said Debendra Sutar, secretary of the Odisha Rationalist Society, a charity.