Patna: A Jesuit college in Patna, capital of Bihar, organized signature campaign and sloganeering to condemn the killing of five women branded as witches in Jharkhand, another state in eastern India.
The staff and students of St Xavier’s College, Digha, organized a symbolic protest on Monday to oppose continuing atrocities against women in India.
The women were beaten to death two days earlier at Kanjia, a village in the Ranchi district of Jharkhand.
The women aged 32-50 years killed at midnight. Their bodies were then put into sacks and thrown outside the village. The villagers protested when the police went to recover the bodies. Rumors against the five women were spread three villagers died recently.
Police have arrested 27 of some 50 persons accused in the grotesque incident.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das condemned the incident and bemoaned, “In the age of knowledge, this incident is sorrowful. Society should ponder over it.”
Condemning the incident, Jharkhand State Women’s Commission chairperson Mahua Manjhi said a strong policy was needed to end such atrocity. She blamed lack of education, awareness and connectivity to cities, besides unemployment, for belief in witchcraft.
Jharkhand accounts for 54 out of 160 cases of murder of women who were branded witches and killed in 2013. A total of 400 women have been murdered in Jharkhand on charges of witchcraft from 2001, according to National Crime Record Bureau.