The Utnoor Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) will conduct an awareness drive on superstitions, sorcery and witchcraft in the Agency mandals of Kerameri and Tiryani in Adilabad district soon. The area where the particularly vulnerable tribal group, the Kolams, live will be under special focus during the drive, according to ITDA project officer R.V. Karnan.
The project officer told The Hindu on Wednesday that superstitious practices are prevalent among the PVTGs, with a murder having been reported in Chinnuguda of Kerameri mandal on June 7. He said a poor Kolam tribal, Kudimetha Poshiga, was brutally murdered by his relatives accusing him of practicing sorcery, among other things.
On Wednesday Mr. Karnan interacted with Ayyubai, the widow of the murdered man, and found her family to be in a pathetic state, economically and otherwise. The ITDA, he said, would give the pregnant widow a temporary job in Ashram School at Hatti in Kerameri mandal and take care of the education of her three children.