In a harrowing case of superstition-fuelled violence, a 50-year-old woman from Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh district was abducted from her home, tortured for 24 hours under the guise of occult rituals, and left abandoned nearly 7 km away—all because her village branded her a “witch.”
On the night of July 18, seven people stormed her home, dragged her out, and subjected her to a series of brutal assaults rooted in superstition. Her son, a migrant worker in Bihar, described the ordeal with chilling detail:
“They shaved her head, cut her with blades under her eyes, on her chest, navel, fingers, toes—everywhere—to ‘extract the evil.’
They kept screaming incantations and threatened to kill her. They even looted ₹20,000 from our house and later called to demand ₹1 lakh or said they’d dump her body.”
Among the accused is a self-styled ‘ojha’ or tantrik, brought in from Koderma district to perform the so-called rituals.
Police have identified five men and two women—all between 40 and 55 years of age—as suspects. So far, only one, Shambhu Yadav, has been arrested.
According to her son, suspicion against his mother had been brewing for months. “It started with small things—a buffalo died, someone fell sick. But when a man in the village died, they said it was her doing.”
A village panchayat was reportedly held after the man’s death. “No one told me. I’m her guardian since my father died in 2007. Still, I wasn’t informed about the meeting where they decided her fate,” he said.
He alleged that the village head (mukhiya) and other elders not only failed to intervene but allowed mob justice to take its course.
Around 10 p.m. on July 18, the perpetrators entered the house. His wife, who was home at the time, was threatened into silence.
The woman was assaulted and subjected to ritualistic violence until 3 a.m., when she was taken across the state border to a hill in Gaya, Bihar.
“There, they forced her to scream to ‘confess’ to being a witch. If she didn’t, they threatened to parade and beat her in the village,” said her son.
She was eventually dumped in a marketplace, seven kilometers from home, around 10 p.m. on July 19—nearly 24 hours after her abduction. Bleeding and disoriented, she walked through the forest alone and reached home around midnight.
Her son rushed her to the local hospital the next day. “She was later referred to Hazaribagh for further treatment. Even now, the accused are pressuring us to drop the case through the village head,” he said.
Barhi police station in-charge Abhas Kumar confirmed the arrest of one accused and said others, including the tantrik, have gone underground.
“We’re conducting regular raids. The matter is extremely serious. We’re committed to finding the rest,” he said, adding that no official complaint of intimidation had been received so far.
This shocking incident adds to the disturbing trend of witch-branding in tribal regions, where patriarchal and superstitious beliefs often claim the dignity—and lives—of women, while the community looks away.
