5th December: In a bid to protect women from being branded witch through the prevailing hunting and other similar practices, the Assembly today unanimously passed the Odisha Prevention of Witch-Hunting Bill, 2013 with provisions of imprisonment up to seven years and penalty for offenders. Read more here.
6th December: According to sources, nine-year-old Aniketha managed to escaped from her captors, who were allegedly trying to sacrifice her, and reached the safety of her parents on Thursday. The incident is being investigated by the Chikkaballapur police. Read more here.
5th December: The Assembly today passed a Bill seeking imprisonment up to three years for witch-hunting and practice of witchcraft prevalent in the state. The move comes in the wake of reports of growing and frequent barbaric murder of women branded as “witches” and other persons practising similar acts. “The proposed legislation aims to prohibit witch-hunting and other similar practices”. Read more here.
5th December: Some young men, last week, again brought into sharp focus the bizarre practice of killing for rituals. Wielding dangerous weapons, this group of criminally-minded miscreants invaded a public health centre in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, and demanded for a day-old baby. When the hospital workers told them that all the babies recently delivered in the centre had been discharged, the suspected ritualists beat up the medical personnel. Read more here.
3rd December: The body of Sharika, the one-and-a-half-year old child who was suspected to have been a victim of human sacrifice, was exhumed on Tuesday December 3 and sent for a second post-mortem. The child’s head and a hand were missing when the body had been found, and hence a canine squad has been pressed into action to find the missing body parts. Read more here.
3rd December: A 3-year-old girl was mysteriously found dead at an under construction building in the Yavatmal district in Maharshtra. Her parents and relatives have said that the girl had become a victim of human sacrifice. Read more here.
2nd December: The Majuli sub-divisional administration has decided to take to task gaon burhas (village headmen) who do not immediately inform it of any illegal activity conducted by an individual or group on innocent villagers in the name of witchcraft. The move comes in the wake of two incidents of witch-hunting on the island in the past month where innocent villagers were branded witches and “purification ceremonies” conducted. Read more here.
2nd December: Years after special laws have been introduced to combat the crime, witch hunts continue unabated. Between the years 2010-12, Chhattisgarh saw 51 such cases while Bihar and Jharkhand witnessed 26 and 9 incidents respectively, says a fresh field study conducted in these three states. Many of these cases are rooted in property disputes, the study further points out, adding that a host of factors such as lack of healthcare, community pressure and poor prosecution have hindered efforts to end the social menace. Read more here.
2nd December: Committee for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights and Dignity of Women has been inaugurated at Nahawugu in the Gushegu District to help eliminate the banishing women for allegedly practising witchcraft. The committee, which comprises of chiefs, assembly members and opinion leaders, is to sensitise people in the communities on the need to respect the rights of especially women to ensure harmonious living. Read more here.
2nd December: The police arrested the three women three days after they declared themselves incarnations of goddesses Lakshmi, Parvati and Durga and inflicted physical punishment on six persons they had called ‘witches’ at a village in Majuli island in Assam. Read more here.
