Rairangpur/Bisoi: A widow, who was missing , since last two days, was found hacked to death by unknown miscreants over suspected witchcraft and sorcery practice at Tambajhari village under Bisoi police limits in Mayurbhanj district, police said Monday.
The victim was identified as Chhita Hembram (55). The incident has spread shockwaves in the area with no let up in sorcery-related deaths in this tribal-dominated district despite the district administration and police conducting a host of awareness programmes to sensitise the inhabitants, mostly tribals.
The matter came to fore after police recovered her body from a pond in neighbouring Matiala village and seized the murder weapons, including an axe and a billhook, Monday afternoon.
Preliminary inquiries and circumstantial evidences suggested that she might have been killed over suspected witchcraft and sorcery practice, Bisoi IIC Kuni Besra said.
ASP Ashok Kumar Patnaik and SDPO Amulya Kumar Dhar also reached the spot and took stock of the situation, while sniffer dogs were pressed into service. Police sent the body for post-mortem to PRM Medical College and Hospital in Baripada. Three persons have been detained in this connection.
According to police, villagers were suspecting Hembram of practicing witchcraft for the last few years and had recently called a meeting in the village where she was asked to pay a penalty of Rs 20,000.
Being poor, Hembram and her family members expressed their inability to pay such a higher amount. Enraged, the villagers ordered to socially boycott the woman and her son. Since then, the woman and her son were living under constant fear apprehending threat to their lives.
The incident is said to have occurred when Hembram’s son had gone to witness a football match in a nearby village Saturday. He returned home after the match and found her mother missing. He searched for her, but failed to trace her. Subsequently, he lodged a missing report in the local police station.
Villagers noticed her body floating in the pond in Matiala village and informed the police Monday.
PNN