Rolling out its plan to check incidents of witch hunting in the State, Jharkhand Police has directed all the SPs to prepare a database of the most vulnerable spots in their areas on the basis of which proper action plan could be prepared. Incidentally, five women were lynched at Maray Toli village of Ranchi, merely 45 kilometers from the State capital on Friday midnight reportedly on allegations of witchcraft.
“Proper mapping after identifying the worst-affected areas is being done by the district police so that proper action plan could be prepared in this regard,” said CID IG (Organised Crime) Sampat Meena. For creating awareness among the innocent and poor people against the menace, special cells at the district and State level are also to be formed for launching special drives through the Panchayti Raj functionaries other
agencies of the State Government, said Meena.
According to Meena, a review of the pending cases related to witch hunting under Range DIGs will also be ensured on monthly basis against which a report has to be submitted with the CID headquarters in Ranchi.
“A special cell at the headquarters headed by DIG (CID) Parmeshwar Ravidas, and assisted by SP Homkar Amol, DSP Sanat Kuamar Soren and Inspector Manoj Kumar Thakur has also been created which will sit together on 15th of every month to take proper steps after reviewing the reports received by the range DIGs,” she added.
A monthly monitoring of the report submitted by them will be done further by Chief Secretary, DGP and CID.
Meena further added that the involvement of exorcist or the local priest are also to be found out in the cases related to witch-hunting and putting them under the scanner if they are found accountable for any death or assault.
“In order to prevent any such death or incident of assault related to witch-hunting, stress will also be given on pro-active intelligence collection through village Chowkidars or Panchayt Sevaks so that timely action could be taken in this regard,” said the IG. Economic angle for the killing has also to be found out so that the actual culprit could be identified and punished accordingly, she said.
Taking a suo-motto cognizance over media reports, the Jharkhand High Court on Monday also has asked the State Government to submit a report regarding the steps taken to create awareness in the direction of removing superstition from the society. The court also termed superstition as the root cause behind such instances which needs to be removed to check the menace of witchcraft from the society.
The district police have also been asked to ensure arresting of the accused persons after reviewing the cases of witch hunting in their areas.
According to National Crime Bureau Records (NCRB), 2097 people have been killed across the country on allegations of witchcraft between 2000 and 2012 and 363 of those cases have been from Jharkhand. The State Government figure, meanwhile, say that between 2011 and 2013, more than 400 people were killed and 2854 of such cases registered.