Village council sentences ‘witches’ to death in Jharkhand

Village council sentences ‘witches’ to death in Jharkhand

5 Of A Family Killed, 5-Yr-Old Not Spared

Jaideep Deogharia & KA Gupta TNN

Buruhatu-Amtoli Pahar (Jharkhand):

Mathura Topno had “failed” his village. In four months, Buruhatu-Amtoli Pahar had lost eight people. Cattle were dropping dead. As the village priest and healer, he had not been able to save them. The least he could do now was point them to the source of “evil”. So, on the morning of February 23, dragged to the centre of the Gram Sabha with some 100 people around him, Mathura was asked for names. He gave them random names.

The next morning, an elderly man found the bloodsoaked body of Josfina Topno, 55, just outside her mud house. Inside, on a wooden cot, was the body of her husband, Nikodim, 60. And in the next room, piled on top of one another were three more corpses — that of their son Vincent, 35, their daughter-in-law Silvanti, 30, and their grandson Albin,

5. A bright yellow and pink toy truck and a cart fashioned out of a box lay next to Albin’s lifeless body.

The family had been hacked to death with axes at night about 10 hours after the gram sabha where Mathura had given the names. “It was all done in 3 minutes,” one of the killers, Salim Topno, boasted later.

When TOI visited the village, there was a dreadful silence. Those who did agree to speak said “black magic” had disrupted their lives. “The villagers believed Sarna (the presiding animist deity) has been angered,” Birendra Surin, mukhiapati of Sarita, the panchayat under which the village lies, said. “We knew some action would be taken,” said another man. Rebuked by another in Mundari, the tribal language, he added, “But we didn’t know they would be killed.”

Dotted with Pathalgarhi, or stone slabs, in honour of the dead, Buruhatu-Amtoli Pahar has been home to 80-odd families and their ancestors for over 500 years. Most families practise animism, seven follow Christianity, and some are Hindu. The village has a middle school, the neighbouring Titih village has a high school and the panchayat has five missionary-run schools. But just one family in the village has studied beyond Class X. Most have small patches of land and others were migrant labourers, many of whom are back with limited prospects and little hope.

Among those who returned was Amrit Topno, 30, Nikodim’s nephew. Amrit and his wife Wilmani live in the house across Nikodim’s. When the bodies were taken for autopsy, Amrit offered to accompany and help the police. Days later, he was identified as one of the killers.

Amrit is among eight who have been arrested so far, along with Soma (25), Sunil (30), Philip (55), Phirangi (45), Sawan (34), Daniel (40) and Salim (25). Seven years ago, Salim had been arrested for killing two women after branding them as witches, tying their bodies to a bike, dragging them to the railway tracks that run by the village and leaving the corpses there.

“All of them were inebriated that night,” Suleman said. Barring Daniel and Philip, the rest are distant relatives of one another.

But why were Josfina and her family targeted? In the villages of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha — the places that record the most “witch-hunt” cases — something as innocuous as taking a bath at night or praying at night can attract accusations. As of now, there seem to be no answers.

Full report on www.toi.in

The family had been hacked to death with axes at night about 10 hours after the gram sabha where the village priest and healer had given the names