Guwahati: It can still happen in this 21st century — person falls sick in a village and some other persons in the village are persecuted on suspicion that they were behind making the person sick by casting a spell of black magic.
A remote Mishing tribe village called Shikari in Majuli river island in Assam has hogged headlines with reports saying from the village that about 35 persons in the tribal village are being persecuted by a section of superstitious villagers blaming them for causing illness to a 11-year-old boy in the village who have been bogged down by chicken pox.
The 30 odd persons have been marked after a section of villagers believed that their names were uttered by the sick.
The villagers have not let those fellows leave the village nor they have allowed others especially media persons to enter the village since October 10 when the outside world came to know about the episode witch hunting taking place in the village.
It has created concern as it is being feared that those persons may be subjected to severe punishment as the area has history of occurrence of such incidents.
Meanwhile, district administration has put in place round the clock surveillance on the village fearing that worse may occur and police picket has been set up in the vicinity of the village. Some NGOs including Takam Mishing Porin Kebang (TMPK) which is an influential Mishing students body, has now resorted to social intervention to resolve the crisis and bail out the persons being victimized for no fault of them and out of sheer superstitious beliefs.
Meanwhile, because of surveillance mounted by the administration and interventions made by some social groups, the 30 odd persons who have been marked as witches are likely to be spared of punishment and subjected to be ‘purification’, according to a senior official in the district administration.
As the matter is sensitive and linked with the sentiments of the tribal villagers, the police have so far refrained from direct intervention to avoid creating a law and order problem.