Pachamba village of Dumariya in Gaya  had fled by locking their houses, amid claims of "fear" of police action

GAYA(Bihar): A woman was burnt alive by telling her to be a witch and the situation is such that the entire village is being evacuated and said to be absconding.

 

The middle age wan was set on fire by a mob recently violent clashes over alleged accusing a woman of the village as a witch at Pachamba village under Magra police station area of ​​Dumaria block, a highly naxal affected area of ​​Gaya district. 

 

Entire villagers from Pachamba village had fled by locking their houses, amid claims of "fear" of police action and no students turning up for classes at two government schools.There is silence in this settlement of about 40 houses these days. The reason for this is the fear of people that the police may not arrest them,said sources. 

Several people had left fearing their names would be dragged in the case. There are 65 to 68 unidentified persons in the FIR and that is the cause of worry for the people here,"added sources.

 

According to the police, on November 5, after accusing a woman of the village as a witch, a furious mob forcibly had entered the house by spraying petrol and set it on fire, causing the woman to die a painful death.

 

As an information provided by the local people 45 days before of the incident, a youth of the village had died of heart attack. While on which the villagers accused the woman of being a witch.  Earlier, to prove the woman a witch, some donations were also collected by the villagers in many villages because Ojha and Bhagat were called from Jharkhand for one and a half lakh rupees.

Meanwhile panchayat was organized early  morning of the incident and before some decision could be taken in the panchayat, hundreds of furious mob attacked the woman's house. The woman was first assaulted by forcibly entering the house.  After which petrol was sprinkled and burnt alive.

After the incident, there is an atmosphere of fear among the relatives of the deceased woman Hemanti Devi. They are apprehensive that the villagers may attack them again, to avoid this they have gone to their relative's place in another nearby village.

An FIR has been lodged by the relatives against 68 named people and 200 unknown ones.  In which 14 people have been arrested.  On the other hand, in order to avoid arrest by the police, the villagers have locked their houses and fled.

On this incident, DM Dr. Thiagarajan SM told that the family members of the deceased have been given funds under the Chief Minister's Family Benefit Scheme. 

Awareness programme will be run to eliminate superstition in that area. 

While SSP Harpreet Kaur has directed to process arrest warrants to all the absconding accused. SSP Harpreet Kaur is personally helping the deceased family a lot.