Uttarakhand police are baffled over cases of braid chopping coming to them from some parts of the State following such cases reported from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. They say that they are unable to proceed while probing them as they hardly find any scientific evidences in support of such cases. Meanwhile, the State police chief Anil Raturi has dubbed all such cases as sheer rumour mongering on Tuesday. While referring to such cases being reported from various police stations of Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Dehradun districts, Raturi said that nobody should lend any credence to such wild mumbo jumbo. “Being from an educated society, we should outright reject them as fallouts from backward minds steeped in superstitions,” DGP said.
Such cases of braid chopping have been reported from Bhurarani village in Rudrapur, Gulriya in Kashipur, Sutiya, Bhanga and Shankar Farm in Pulbhatta and Nai Basti Mohallah in Jaspur. Such things have sparked an atmosphere of fear with the scared people attributing them to supernatural agencies like ‘witches’ and ‘ghosts’.
CO Rudrapur, Swatantra Kumar said that those who are complaining such things are being attended to by the police. “However, we are advising them against reporting such cases. They are unable to substantiate their complainants through concrete evidences. We are at a loss over how to probe them,” he said.
Another police officer from Rudrapur Tushar Bora said that such a complaint has been received from Bhurarani village. “I am wondering how it is possible to chop hair of a woman when she was in a locked room,” he added.
Even as the numbers keep increasing with theories of black magic and theft doing rounds among the people, police in Dehradun and Haridwar said that some anti- social elements might be running the rumour mill with vested interests.
Two such cases being reported from Jhabreda of Mangalour and Teliwali area of Roorkee, Haridwar police made it clear that the cases of women's hair chopping were rumours. ”We are asking the people not to become party to such vicious rumour mongering,” said Roorkee circle officer SK Singh. Another case has surfaced at Sahaspur, Dehradun too.
While speaking of the matter, the state additional director general of police (law and order) Ram Singh Meena said that they were watchful to stop any unfortunate incident of people dying after being beaten by mobs on the line of what had happened a few days ago in Agra. Notably, a tribal woman died of cardiac arrest in Mutnai hours after she was beaten with sticks and rods by two men whose house she had stumbled into after she lost her way while returning home from the fields.