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Blind belief leads to torture

BERHAMPUR: Eight persons, including a woman, had to face inhuman torture at the hands of their own villagers blinded by superstitious belief in sorcery at remote Gerada village under Tarsing police station in Ganjam district.

The villagers had broken the front teeth of these eight victims and they were also forced to consume human excreta. The incident occurred at the village on Monday. On Tuesday one of the victims, Radha Sethi, managed to escape from the village and informed the police about the incident.

Bhanjanagar Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) J.P. Mohapatra said a police team was sent to the remote village to investigate the incident. Most of the male members of the village had escaped into the nearby jungles. The police took a person into custody who was being interrogated.

According to sources, the superstitious villagers started to allege that practice of sorcery by some persons of the village was the reason behind the illness and deaths at the village in recent months. The collected money and called up a tantric from Nayagarh district who identified eight persons, including the woman as practitioners of black magic. These eight persons were beaten up before the mob and broke their front teeth to disable them from chanting mantras.

Usually superstitious villagers due to their ignorance blame sorcery to be the reason behind deaths caused due to malaria and gastro-enteritis.

They pay up hefty sums to self proclaimed clandestine tantrics to get the sorcery practitioners identified.

Mr. Mohapatra said the fee of these tantrics was usually more than Rs. 20,000. They use a cot to identify the sorcery practitioners at any village. About a year ago, two such tantrics from Nayagarh district were arrested from Ujura village near Bhanjanagar while they were trying to locate sorcery practitioners at the village following a gastro death.

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