Morbi: Suspecting her to be a witch, nephews hack aunty to death

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The two brothers hit the woman on head repeatedly and killed her on the spot, Halvad police said.

After the assault, the two brothers ran away even as Somi’s husband Bhikha Rathod filed a complaint with Halvad police station.

In his complaint, Bhikha stated that his two nephews attacked Somi suspecting she had cast a spell of black magic over their family and that she was the reason of hardships faced by their family.

“Amraat (20), sister of the two accused, is a patient of epilepsy. Her brothers suspected that Somi had cast a spell of black magic over her and that was why she used to suffer bouts of epilepsy.

Moreover, families of Jetha and Bhikha had disputes going on for last four years and they were not even on talking terms,” Manish Vala, police sub-inspector Halvad said.

Sources said that suspicion of Bhikha’s family that Amraat was victim of black magic had redoubled after a bhuva (priest of patron deity of a community) from neighbouring Surendranagar district pointed finger at Somi for all their troubles.

Based on Bhikha’s complaint, Halvad police have booked Mahendra and Hira for murder. The PSI said efforts were on to nab the culprits.

The Observatory said the dead include 69,494 civilians, among them 11,493 children. The conflict has also claimed the lives of 49,106 troops, 32,533 pro-government fighters and 38,592 rebels, it said.

The others killed include army defectors, Islamic State militants, foreign fighters and members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, which is fighting alongside government forces.

Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said the real death toll could be above 300,000, since there are tens of thousands of people who are missing or were buried without being counted.

The U.N. said last year that the war has killed at least 220,000 people. That figure has not been updated.

Syria’s conflict began with peaceful Arab Spring-inspired demonstrations demanding political reform, but eventually escalated into a civil war after the government responded with a violent crackdown on dissent.

Today the country is split among Assad’s forces, the Islamic State group and mainly Islamist insurgent groups.