Ms Mahato her husband, Nirmal and a local police officer described the assault, during which the prominent man threatened to rape her, she said.
He, his brother, his wife and their daughter then declared Mahato a witch before luring her to their home and attacking her. In the Jharkhand case, the young woman who was attacked, Durga Mahato, said the trouble started when she refused the sexual advances of a prominent man in the village. The motives can be to grab land, to ostracise a woman to settle a score, or to justify violence. But witchcraft accusations are now often simply a tool to oppress women, victims' advocates say. A crop would fail, a well would run dry, or a family member would fall ill, and villagers would find someone - almost always a woman - to blame for a misfortune whose cause they did not understand.Ĭhhutni Mahato, right, once a target of witch hunting who has been recognised by the Indian government for her work to eliminate the practice, talks with another victim in the village of Birbans, eastern state of Jharkhand. The attack, in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand in 2021, was evidence that India is still struggling to eradicate the age-old scourge of witch hunting, despite a raft of laws and other initiatives.įor centuries, the branding of witches was driven largely by superstition.
When the pummelling finally ended, after nearly two hours, the young woman was pulled outside by her hair, dragged through her village and dumped, unconscious, next to a temple, her clothing barely clinging to her battered body. "You are a witch," shouted one of the attackers as she, her parents and her uncle rained punches, kicks and slaps on the 26-year-old woman's stomach, chest and face. They ushered the young woman into their home and closed the door behind her.
Dukhu Majhi, who moved with her family to a room near a larger city after she was accused of being a witch, gathers mangoes with her husband and children during a visit to the home they were chased from, in a village in the eastern state of Jharkhand, India, on May 9.
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