SUPERSTITION "TORTURES" IN GANJAM VILLAGES!

Source:- The Times Of India

Godhi Pala and three others are the latest victims of superstition. They had been tonsured, had their teeth pulled out and forced to swallow human excreta before being paraded naked in Ganjam's Phasipada village recently because villagers believed they were sorcerers.Similar was the fate of Hema Swain (60) of a village near Patapur. She was tied to a tree and beaten up before being driven out of the village last year because villagers believed she was a witch. In another incident, six women from Kumarapari village within Khallikote police limits were branded with iron rods because villagers felt they were responsible for some deaths and outbreak of disease.

Human right activists and police said many people in rural areas are victimized for blind beliefs. Sixteen such cases were recorded in the district in the last three months. Besides Kodala and Khallikote, such incidents were reported from Sorada, Badagada, Patapur, Gangapur and Tarasingi police limits.Ignorance, illiteracy, ill-health and blind beliefs are responsible for such incidents, said Simanchal Bisoi, an advocate and human rights activist, quoting a study of Andhra Pradesh-based Atheist Centre. Politics is also responsible for spurt in such incidents, a senior police officer said. Most of these are acts of revenge, he added.

Some persons from Nayagarh district, who claim to be practitioners of Khatavidya, a superstitious practice to detect black magic, are invited and paid huge amounts by the village committees to identify witches. "They are responsible for the spurt in this kind of crime," said Sudhir Sabat, an social activist.