“One of the accused told the villagers that the women were witches and responsible for deaths and diseases in the village. They attacked the women in the night and killed them brutally,” district police chief Indrajit Mahatha told AFP. More than 2,000 people — many of them women — were killed in India on suspicion of witchcraft between 2000 and 2012, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. Some states, including Jharkhand, have introduced special laws to try to curb crimes against people accused of witchcraft and superstition. Experts say belief in witchcraft and the occult remains widespread in impoverished rural communities across India.

Source: The Guardian June 29, 2019 12:11 UTC