Guwahati: Police have arrested four people in connection with the beheading of a 50-year-old woman in an Assam village, northeastern India. Faguni Kabari of Barkhuli village in Tezpur was allegedly beheaded on Tuesday by her neighbors after accusing her of practicing black magic. Police arrested the four persons immediately after the incident, reports the Shillong Times. Faguni had accused her neighbors Rafael and Sanjay Surin of stealing her chicken. Two members of the Surin family had died following their feud with Faguni. The duo accused her of casting spells on the family thereby causing the tragedy. Police suspected that her feud with the
Surin family led to murder of Falguni who was branded a witch by the neighbors. The police arrested Rafael and Sanjay, along with two others, on charges of killing Faguni. In a separate incident police rescued a 60-year-old man, Danda Gogoi, from his residence in Lakhimpur. His neighbors had kept him under ‘house-arrest’ since Saturday on charges of practicing black magic. The village headman had alerted the police on Tuesday morning, leading to the rescue of the person. Killing people accused of practicing witchcraft has become a serious social problem in Assam and the state government recently passed a stringent law to deal with the malady. However, the law seems to have little effect in interior villages where superstition prevails. Over the last five years, more than 100 woman have been killed in similar witch hunts in the state.