Villagers in Sonitpur justify beheading of adivasi woman

Guwahati: Superstitions have taken so deep a root in the psyche of people in the impoverished Bhimajuli village in the state that many of its residents showed no sign of remorse even after a 60-year-old adivasi woman, branded a ‘witch’, was lynched by her fellow villagers recently.
Home to different ethnic groups, including descendants of tea garden workers or ‘adivasis’, Bhimajuli is located in Sonitpur district, around 277 km from here.Most of the residents are settled on forested land and lack basic amenities, education facilities and healthcare.
Police said the 16 people accused of brutally killing the woman maintained that they had done nothing wrong. “Superstition is so deeply embedded in their minds that none of them showed any remorse for the killing. Rather, they kept asserting that their action would result in the wellbeing of other residents. They kept arguing that if they hadn’t killed the woman, the other villagers would have been afflicted by disease,” a senior police officer said.
A mob from the village charged the woman with practising ‘witchcraft’, dragged her out of her house and lynched her. Later, they beheaded her. The villagers initially prevented police from entering the village.
The case involves analysis of the socio-economic and psychological conditions of the people living in the village and is a challenge for police, activists said. They added that an interaction with the villagers made it clear that almost all of them supported the gruesome act as they believed it freed them from the clutches of a ‘malevolent’ force.
Killings in the name of witchhunt is a recurrent phenomenon.
“This practice claims a large number of lives in the state every year. It is the worst form of human rights violation that is being allowed to happen with impunity. Women are the worst suffers, yet policy-makers have done nothing to curb this crime,” human rights activist and member of WinG India, Anjuman Ara Begum said.
Brothers, an organization campaigning against witchhunts, demanded that the government ensure that the bill against witchhunting is passed in the August 10 assembly session.