Five women have been killed in a village in Jharkhand, 45 kilometres from capital Ranchi, reportedly on allegations of witchcraft.
The village falls under Ranchi’s Mandar block. The police have confirmed the incident and say they have not made any arrest yet and are investigating.
The cops also say that prima facie it seems that villagers were involved in the incident and there was no outside influence.
Killings on the suspicion of witchcraft have a fairly high occurrence in Jharkhand and in the past, many such instances have come to light in the state.
According to National Crime Bureau Records (NCRB), 2097 people have been killed across the country on allegations of witchcraft between 2000 and 2012 and 363 of those cases have been from Jharkhand. The state government figure, meanwhile, say that between 2011 and 2013, more than 400 people were killed and 2854 of such cases registered.
Jharkhand has had an anti-witchcraft law since 2001, but human rights activists say not much has been done on the ground to make the law effective, including creating social awareness about the issue.