Five women in the eastern Indian province of Jharkhand were beaten to death Friday night for allegedly practicing witchcraft.
The incident took place in Kajiya Maraytoli village, barely 25 miles from provincial capital Ranchi. Police have detained 27 suspects in the murders, including college students, according to The Indian Express.
"Five women were beaten to death with sticks and rods by villagers, mostly youth. The women were picked up from their houses on Friday night. The villagers alleged that they were involved in practicing black magic," a Jharkhand police official said, according to IANS.
"They [attackers] were armed with sticks and sharp-edged weapons and killed the hostages one by one," the daughter of one of the victims told Gulf News. "We cried, prayed for mercy but they did not move a bit. Instead they threatened to kill us if we dared to report the incident to the police."
Villagers suspected that these five women killed a teenage boy last week by using black magic. Villagers, in a meeting on Friday night, decided to eliminate the women in order to prevent more deaths in the village, Hindustan Times reported.
"Every year, these women are claiming 5-7 lives, mostly our young sons and brothers. Lest we kill them, they will continue to claim more lives," one of villager, identified as Xavier, said in meeting prior to crime.
Police said the dead bodies of five women, aged between 32 and 50 years, were put into sacks and thrown outside the village.
Nearly 50 people, most of them women, were killed for being "witches" in the Jharkhand province last year. India's National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) said that more than 2,000 alleged witches were murdered in the country between 2000 and 2012, according to Pune Mirror.
