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SEVEN PEOPLE HAVE been arrested over the murder of two men accused of using black magic to kill their neighbours, Indian police said today.
The victims were beaten up and then set on fire on Monday when they returned to their village in the eastern state of Orissa after fleeing in the wake of the accusations.
“They had returned to the village and were caught by the mob,” Santosh Kumar Mishra, deputy police chief of Gajapati district, where the incident took place, said.
“They were accused of killing four villagers, including a child, using black magic,” he said.
Experts say belief in witchcraft and the occult remains widespread in some impoverished and remote areas of India, where occasional incidents of human sacrifices have also been reported.
More than 2,000 people were killed in India on suspicion of witchcraft between 2000 and 2012, according to the most recent figures from the National Crime Records Bureau. Many of the victims were women.
Some states, including Orissa, have introduced special laws to try to curb crimes against people accused of witchcraft and superstition.
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Black magic matters
Black magic is the magic of peace.99.9 percent of people who follow it are ok, it’s just the few extremists that give it a bad name.
thats exactly what an evil sorcerer would say while casting a spell to turn my nads into potatoes
Love that chocolate.
Barbaric country!
Yeah, countries that put children into slave labour take their babies. Wait a minute…
Magic people Voodoo people ..
How about a country that forces women to die and give birth to dead fetuses due to religious beliefs. Not barbaric?
In fact, India is far from barbaric where the vast majority of people are concerned, but there are very large pockets of appalling poverty coupled with illiteracy, religious superstition and, not infrequently, local demagogues who exploit fears and incite hate and violence against their chosen scapegoats. Not unlike some western populist leaders.
To put it in perspective, however, there were around 2,000 such killings in India in the 13 years 2000-2012. That makes 154 a year. Allowing for India’s population, which is about 270 times that of the Irish Republic, we in Ireland would be in the world headlines if we had a senseless killing like that every 2½ years.
Naturally, nothing like that could ever happen in Ireland.
I haven’t seen a box of black magic in years
My favourite part of The Journal is that people can make jokes about dead people once the incident isn’t in Ireland, yet you make a slightly negative comment that goes against the norm on Irish related topics and it’s deleted.
The Journal, a great website altogether!
its no milk tray, a lad leaves that in your bed for you
Over here they just bully them to death, that didn’t make the news?
No more primative than christians, with support for human sacrifice and the killing of those involved in witchcraft.
Really, David.
David> While I agree that is a couple of centuries ago. Indian does however have extremely liberal views and laws on stem cell research which the west don’t mostly down to religious reasons.
That’s right David. We in the west really need to sort out those old human sacrifice ceremonies that blight our neighbourhoods and give us western Christians a bad name.
How dare you not comply with Irish social norms!!
Went to see Arthur Miller’s The Crucible recently.
Although taken at face value the play appears to question religious superstition the reality is that Miller for reasons of personal safety used the Salem trials as a metaphor for the political tyranny and paranoia of the McCarthy era which had at its heart wealth and the distribution of that wealth.
Often these cases of group hysteria are manifestations of dark desires and hidden agendas culminating in a frenzied power struggle which results in a transference of land and property from the victims to the accusers.
next you’ll be telling me the salesman doesn’t die
Kal ipurs -where all the women who are “forced to die????? Where are all the dead women?..it’s obvious you’re just using this article to push an agenda. Yawn!
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