Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/Nnluhl4wjhiAAUklQwDtOL/Witch-hunting--Victims-of-superstition.html
Witch hunting | Victims of superstition
Witch hunting as motive has led to 2,097 murders between 2000 and 2012?363 of them in Jharkhand, show national records
Ashwaq Masoodi
...The National Crime Records Bureau says 2,097 murders were committed between 2000 and 2012 where witch hunting was the motive. Out of these, 363 were reported from Jharkhand and this figure does not include the murders in 2000, when Jharkhand was a part of Bihar. The Jharkhand Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) office puts the total number of such murders from 2001 to October 2013 at 414 and cases registered for witchcraft at 2,854.
Apart from Jharkhand, at least 11 other states?Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Assam and Bihar?still report cases of witch hunting.
Once practised only by tribal communities, witch hunting is now becoming common among Dalits and other minority communities.
The idea of a witch is common across all the affected states. They are thought to possess an evil eye or mouth, they eat humans, kill cattle, destroy crops, and cause illness.
But witch hunting is not just the result of such superstition. Family disputes over property, land rights of women, and village-level and gender conflicts are some of the other reasons for witch hunts in India, historians say...
Witch hunting | Victims of superstition
Witch hunting as motive has led to 2,097 murders between 2000 and 2012?363 of them in Jharkhand, show national records
Ashwaq Masoodi
...The National Crime Records Bureau says 2,097 murders were committed between 2000 and 2012 where witch hunting was the motive. Out of these, 363 were reported from Jharkhand and this figure does not include the murders in 2000, when Jharkhand was a part of Bihar. The Jharkhand Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) office puts the total number of such murders from 2001 to October 2013 at 414 and cases registered for witchcraft at 2,854.
Apart from Jharkhand, at least 11 other states?Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Assam and Bihar?still report cases of witch hunting.
Once practised only by tribal communities, witch hunting is now becoming common among Dalits and other minority communities.
The idea of a witch is common across all the affected states. They are thought to possess an evil eye or mouth, they eat humans, kill cattle, destroy crops, and cause illness.
But witch hunting is not just the result of such superstition. Family disputes over property, land rights of women, and village-level and gender conflicts are some of the other reasons for witch hunts in India, historians say...