Seven persons, including a woman, were on Monday sentenced to death and six others to life imprisonment by a court in Ghatal for the 2012 lynching of three women of a single family on suspicion of their being witches at a village in West Midnapore district.
One more person was sent to nine years in jail by the court of SDJM Deboprosad Nath in the sensational killing of the three women at Dubrajpur village under Daspur police station area in June, 2012.
FIRs were filed against a total 49 persons, all residents of the same village which the slain women belonged to for assaulting and torturing the victims to death after suspecting them to be witches.
Of them, 22 were chargesheeted. Two of them died earlier during the trial while six persons were acquitted.