Odisha: 75-year-old widow battered to death in suspected witchcraft case

The alleged witchcraft murder happened in Podagada village under Jashipur police station in Odisha’s tribal-dominated Mayurbhanj district

In case of suspected witchcraft murder, a 75-year-old woman in tribal-dominated Mayurbhanj district in Odisha was found battered to death with a stone late Thursday night, police said.

The Odisha police said the murder of the widow looked like a typical case of witchcraft murder. (Representative Image)

Police officials in Mayurbhanj said the body of Champa Hembram, a 75-year-old Santhal widow in Podagada village under Jashipur police station, was found by her grandchildren early Friday morning. “Her head was completely battered with a stone which was found next to her body. It had bloodstains on it,” said sub divisional police officer of Karanjia, Sudarshan Gangoi.

Gangoi said the murder of the widow looked like a typical case of witchcraft murder as stone is the often-used weapon in such murders. “The assailants either batter the head or decapitate in cases of witchcraft murders. The victim in most cases is a widow or a single woman with no support system. Prima facie it seems to be a case of witchcraft murder,” he said.

The village with no motorable roads is located on the foothills of a mountain in the Similipal wildlife sanctuary. As its remoteness from the healthcare institutions is a major impediment, villagers flock to local witch doctor for routine ailments.

The local police will try to find out if there have been cases of sickness or some deaths in the village in the last few days or weeks which could have resulted in the witchcraft murder.

“We are waiting for the scientific team’s investigation report and post mortem report before we arrest people in the case,” said the official.

Researcher Usha Satpathy, who has done some studies on the prevalence of witchcraft in Mayurbhanj, said the murder of the elderly woman was most likely a case of witchcraft murder. “In most of the cases that I studied, the victims were elderly women who are physically weak. In most remote villages with no healthcare facilities, the first port of call for a sick person is the local witch doctor. After a few days of sorcery, the sick person dies and the witch-doctor points finger at an elderly woman of the village accusing her to be the witch. The woman then has no way of staying alive,” said Satpathy.

A study done by NGO Action Aid in January last year in the districts of Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj and Ganjam found that inadequate healthcare facilities in the grassroots, particularly for children, along with the failure in providing timely medical care to the ill are the root cause of witchcraft practice in most cases. Gender inequality, illiteracy, superstition and poor socio-economic conditions are other factors contributing to the crime.