Witchcraft allegation: Tura police to form special probe team
TURA: West Garo Hills police is putting in place a special task force to expand its investigation into the gruesome murders of five people, from two related families by a mob of villagers in Mrigre village of
Rongram block, near Tura. The killings were unearthed by police this week.
Four persons from the affected village, including the headman (Nokma) have already been arrested in connection with the murders.
Nokma Lind B Marak (28) along with villagers Robson P Marak (45),Chendal T Sangma (58) and Seminal B Marak (46) were taken into custody on Wednesday and later remanded to judicial custody following their
interrogation by police.
All four are believed to have been witness to the lynching and secret burial of the five victims and police have not ruled out their direct involvement until completion of the investigations.
“A special team of officers is being formed and each and every villager will be questioned because they are floating many theories which need to be probed. There appears to be a hidden agenda,” said
district police chief Mukesh Kr Singh while not ruling out more arrests in connection with the murders.
The villagers who are now in the radar of the police investigation have now begun to throw up various theories into the incident with one claim being that the victims were connected to extortion despite one of the murdered persons being a fifty year old woman.
One angle police have not ruled out in their investigation is that of a land dispute which has in many cases been the main reason for lynching of innocent victims branded as witches. There is immense fear running through the families of the five murdered victims. It was fear for their own lives which prevented the affected families from coming forward to report the gruesome tragedy that befell them at the hands of villagers who lived in the same village and interacted with them every day of their lives.
The wife of one of the murdered victims did not even have the courage to report about the murder of her husband and merely gave a missing report until Tura police discovered the killings and located the graves after interrogating the villagers.