Bihar: In Another Case of ‘Street Justice’, Woman Lynched to Death for ‘Practicing Witchcraft’
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Patna: In yet another case of ‘street justice’ or mob rule, a woman was lynched in a village in Rohtas district of Bihar, allegedly for practicing witchcraft.
Chinta Devi, in her mid-50s, was beaten to death by a mob in Akashi village in Agrer police station on Sunday after they branded her a witch after the body of a missing minor boy was found near her house.
According to a local police official, a mob attacked the victim's house, dragged her out and beat her till she died. The mob also set her house on fire.
Police said the body of 4-year-old Shivam, son of Jaggu Singh, who went missing in the village, was found close to the woman’s house, which angered some villagers, who accused Chinta Devi of killing the boy and practicing black magic.
The bodies of the boy and the elderly woman were sent for post-mortem.
Fearing threat to their life, the family members of the deceased woman, mostly men, reportedly fled the village after the incident on Sunday night.
Rohtas Superintendent of Police Vineet Kumar said that police had started investigation to find out the exact cause behind the lynching.
This is not a first case of lynching of a woman allegedly for practicing witchcraft in the rural part of the state.
The practice of branding women as witches and torturing them - often to death - continues unabated in remote rural areas of Bihar.
Last year a 65-year-old dalit woman was killed allegedly for practicing witchcraft in Katihar district.
Local Hindi dailies in recent years reported that several women were attacked, beaten, abused, humiliated and one was even forced by a mob to eat human excreta after being branded as witches.
Bihar was the first state in the country to promulgate a law — Prevention of Witch (Daain) Practices Act — in 1999 to prevent witch-hunting, and torturing, humiliating and killing of women in its name. But the implementation of the law on the ground is poor so far.
In rural areas, the old system of powerful local "Baba", "Ojha" or "Bhagat" is very common and they rule the roost. Going by reported cases, women, mostly poor and old and widows, belonging to dalit and other lower castes, are most often branded as ‘witches’ and punished by mobs.
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