Suddenly there has been a flood of incidents like murder, robbery, rape, extortion in Bihar. In Patna, a doctor had not even cooled the headlines of the murder by shooting outside his house that the country was stunned by the incident of killing the whole family in the name of a witch from Purnia. Five people of the same family were burnt alive on charges of witch in Tetgama Ward 10 of Rajiganj Panchayat of Mufassil police station area in Purnia district. Allegedly, the fault of not being cured of a child’s illness was put on a ‘witch’ of that family. The matter increased so much that the whole family was transformed into murder. Not only this, more than 200 people were present there at the time of the incident, but all the spectacles remained there. So, have all the crimes in the state start raising their heads together, while assembly elections are scheduled in the next two-three months in the state.
The witch kills is the most ugly face of superstition and despite all the laws, this distortion has emerged from every corner of the country. Such incidents often happen in the whole country. There are countless reasons such as someone’s illness, increasing debt, no children getting married, crop deterioration, whose fault is blamed by a woman’s head and on this excuse she is killed by calling her a witch. There is a full range of such horrific stories of superstition.
Sonu is being told the only member of Purnia’s family. He said that his grandmother, father, mother and brother were burnt alive in front of his eyes. He told that the crowd was behind him, but he somehow ran away his grandmother’s house. According to Sonu, late night people came home and started beating everyone. The mob took the family hostage but somehow managed to escape and hid some distance away. Sonu says that he saw the villagers dragging their families and burning everyone alive. Then the dead bodies were filled in sack and buried. Sonu says that he did not want to run away but he would have been killed if he tried to save the family while staying there.
Every time after such an incident, the question arises that why the law is not able to stop such murders or why are such murders happening. There are deep roots of superstition behind such incidents. Not only Bihar, in Jharkhand, superstition and sorcery in tribal and rural areas are still deep in the society. Whenever there is illness or sudden death in a family, its blame is put on a woman in the village. Such a woman often belongs to the deprived sections. Most witch women belong to Dalit community. Many times they are alone and sometimes the whole family is sacrificed for superstition. Despite all the laws, this evil practice remains even today.
According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), more than 2,500 women have been murdered in Bihar from 2000 to 2024 as a witch. This number is estimated to be high as many such cases are not registered.
The situation in Jharkhand is even more frightening. In the last 20 years, more than 1800 women were killed as a witch. This means, every third day a woman in Jharkhand sacrifices a sacrifice of superstition. Between 2015 and 2020, 4,556 cases were reported and 272 murders, of which 215 were women.
It is ironic that Bihar is the first state in the country to enact a law in 1999 to stop witch and black magic. Nevertheless, there is no means to stop such murders here. Under this law, there is a provision of punishment for harassing black magic, sorcery and witch.
In Bihar, a voluntary organization named Trust continuously tries to create awareness among the people. The trust works with the woman for sexual violence or murder with the woman. The institution works to bring out the experiences of women who have faced violence due to witch practice. Its purpose is to keep the debate related to public forums from a new perspective.
Apart from Bihar, laws have been enacted in Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. But despite the law in Jharkhand too, such murders have not stopped. This law was enacted in 2001 in Jharkhand. In Odisha, in 2013, there was a law prohibiting witch and sorcery, which provides for a sentence of 1 to 3 years. Chhattisgarh enacted a law under the name of Tonahi torture prevention in 2015 which provides for up to five years.
