JOWAI, May 17: After recent insinuations about the alleged involvement in the banishment of a family from Saba village in West Jaintia Hills over allegations that they were practising witchcraft (locally known as Taro), the Dorbar Shnong of the village has denied any involvement in shunting the family out and torching their house.
The house of Nijanduh Phawa, who lived with her husband Nicholas Nartiang, was set ablaze, and it was alleged that the deed was committed at the behest of the Dorbar Shnong.
After allegedly being banished, the family was reportedly staying in the house of one of their relatives in another village.
The incident took place on May 14 and 15.
In a statement issued here, the Dorbar claimed that Phawa left the village for her safety.
Narrating the sequence of event, the headman of the village, Andreas Suchiang, in the statement, said that six young girls had begun falling ill in March, a condition that was dubbed as epilepsy.
One day, one of the girls uttered the name of Phawa as she suffered a purported seizure and would also reportedly run towards the woman’s house, the headman said.
Following complaints by the parents of the girls, the Dorbar summoned Phawa on April 19. She, however, denied all allegations of practising witchcraft against her.
After an initial threat to lodge a police complaint against the Dorbar, Phawa, however, requested for a meeting of the Dorbar to solve the matter.
According to the headman, Phawa claimed to cure the girls with a ritual and promised to leave the village the girls were not cured.
“In May, Phawa performed the rituals. However all of the girls were not cured,” the Dorbar stated.
Following this, Phawa’s house was vandalised on May 14. The Dorbar claimed to have no knowledge about who was the culprit.
The headman said that leaders of the Phawa clan arrived in the village and met the girls on May 15, when they had again fallen ill.
“We had a meeting with the leaders of Phawa clan and we decided to request Nijanduh Phawa to leave the village for the time being for her safety. However, her house was burned in the evening”, the statement said.
Reacting to the case, Social Welfare Minister Kyrmen Shylla lamented over the fact that people in this contemporary world still believe in witchcraft, while emphasising that people should not have taken law into their hands.
“This is bad. If somebody is taking law into their hand, law will not spare you,” the minister said
The minister also said that in the recent case of a woman being tied to a pole and heckled in Jowai on charges of being a pickpocket, the culprits must be brought to book.
Refusing to comment much on the matter, Shylla said the police are inquiring into the matter.
