Three days after the State Assembly passed the Odisha Prevention of Witch-hunting Bill, a woman in lanjipalli Totasahi here was subjected to inhuman torture by her husband and father-in-law on the suspicion that she was a witch.
While her father-in-law and mother-in-law have been arrested, her husband is absconding, police sources said.
The woman, identified as Kuni Sahu wife of Ganesh Sahu, was admitted at the MKCG Medical College Hospital here on Sunday with bleeding injuries after her husband and her father-in-law Gobinda Sahu beat her black and blue, knocked out her teeth and forced her to consume human excreta.
Reports said Ganesh, a smalltime fast food seller, along with his father Gobinda, suspected Kuni of practising witchcraft and targeting him after falling ill at regular intervals and incurring heavy losses in his business. The fact that the medicines prescribed by the doctors did not work added to their suspicion.
On Sunday afternoon, Ganesh had a fight with Kuni over his illness and accused her of being a witch. The verbal duel took a violent turn when the father-son duo knocked out her teeth and forced human excreta into her mouth.
Unable to bear the torture and with nobody in the neighbourhood willing to come to her rescue, Kuni ran out of her house and reached the lanjipalli police outpost from where she was sent to the hospital by an ambulance.
The local Mahila police, which are investigating the case, said her sari smelled of human excreta and she had bleeding injuries in her mouth and chin.Kuni, who is undergoing treatment under police protection, said her husband was suffering from mental illness.