Witch Craft Practices in Assam: While the man has moved beyond moon and is venturing into space and the rest of India is shining, in some places of Assam, the dark forces of evil is still being worshiped and some of them killed, because they practices it. Yes, we are talking about witch craft!
Not that we support this evil practice, but what most un-nerves us is the more evil way in which the persons practicing witch craft are hunted down and killed mercilessly. Some persons are killed on mere suspicion of witchcraft and sorcery, even though they had not been practicing it at all!
Some statistics to illustrate our point: more than 200 people have been reportedly killed on suspicion of witchcraft and sorcery in the last five years alone. Such gruesome incidents have been increasing year after year. Presently the instances of witch killings are confined within the three communities of Assam. These are Adivasi, Bodos and the Missing communities. The major happenings are seen among the Bodo community.
Witch hunting - understanding the process: Witch killings always happens amongst the downtrodden that has to rely on the quacks, as health facilities are not available to them.
The powerful in the village are mostly involved in such crime. These extreme actions happen after a lot of silent social mobilization through rumors in the village. When the whole village finally declares on the suspected witch, individual or groups goes into actions. Sometimes branding of witch may not come through formal declaration of the community but it is implicitly done.
On little suspicion with no scientific reasoning, the poorest of the poor is targeted. It is shocking that they are paraded naked, their body parts chopped off into pieces and often hacked to death by the village mob.
Why LFR is interested to work on this issue? In this strange issue, normally only the few person who get directly involved are punished to a certain extent.
It is observed in most witches hunting cases the whole communities of the village are involved either through conspiracy, aids and instigations. Otherwise these sorts of killings by one or more persons would have been difficult to carry out in such extreme actions.
To illustrate involvement of whole village in the crime: Lets take the normal cases of rural customs, in which guilty are called for explanation for the crime. But in witch hunting crimes, the criminals are never charged in the village court. They are not even tried and inquired in the village by the village head or the leaders. This implies the consistent moral support of the whole village in the crime. Therefore the killings of suspect witch or Daina is not actions of the individual alone but also the whole community of the village.
How LFR intends to act upon it? In order to prevent and tackle this social menaces we need to take effective measures for deterrence. It is not enough just to consider it as murder and book it under section 302 of IPC.
To deal with it, we need effective law to curb this dimension of crime apart from improving the medical facilities to the rural folk practicing it. It is appropriate to have legislation to fight against these strange issues.
LFR intends to associate itself to dispel the superstitions among the rural folk by social mobilization as well as it intends to lobby for enacting effective legislation to curb this crime.
For your any further query, we would be happy to answer. You can contact us at emaillfr@gmail.com. We would also be happy if you post your comments on this topic below.
