Superstition has led to brutal killing of one person, by a group of villagers in Cachar district, located over 300 km away from Assam’s Capital town Guwahati on Thursday night.
Police on Friday said that the victim, Jawaharlal Mura (60), was killed by his fellow villagers in one of the most spine chilling manner — tied to a tree and tortured by inflicting wounds upon him, till he died due to profuse bleeding and pain.
Police have, however, arrested 11 persons on Friday including three women for their suspected involvement in the crime.
The incident took place at a remote village — Kalabil Basti, located adjacent to the Narayanpur tea estate under lakhipur police station in the district on Friday night. The village is mainly inhabited by tea tribe and ex-tea
tribe communities.
Narrating the incident, Cachar Superintendent of Police Diganta Bora said that several people of the village caught hold of Mura on Friday and killed him by torturing him to death. “Mura died on Friday night after one of the villagers dreamt a goddess in his dream. The goddess told him that Mura is under the grip of evil forces and that he must be killed for wellbeing of the village and its dwellers,” said Bora while quoting locals.
“When a police team went to the village on Saturday morning, the villagers opposed to the inquiry and police had to resort to mild lathi-charge to disperse the crowd. However, we have been able to retrieve the Mura body,” Bora said adding that the body had been sent for post-mortem examination.
It may be mentioned here that witch hunting is common practice among the adivasis,
tea tribes and ex-tea tribes community, the Bodos and the Rabha communities of Assam and a total of 80 people have been killed in Assam in the last five years — from January 2006 to February 2011 — due to witch-hunting according to the official report.