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Indian state gripped by fear of witches: report

NEW DELHI: Authorities in a remote area of eastern India have appealed to the public not to conduct witch hunts following rumours that roving bands of witches had been killing people swept the region, media reports said Wednesday.

Panic has spread through Chhattisgarh state following reports that witches were knocking on people’s doors and asking for onions and chapatti – local staple foods – and that anyone who handed out the food would die.

Chhattisgarh, India’s most impoverished state, remains deeply traditional and superstitions and beliefs in the occult are rampant. Last year at least 10 women were killed there on suspicion of being witches.

“We have asked people not to believe in gossip mongering and try and think rationally,” Subodh Kumar Singh, a local government official told the Indian Express newspaper.

“Awareness campaigns have also been launched asking people not to harass women by calling them ‘tonhi’ (witch),” Singh was quoted as saying.

Many people, including local politicians, daubed prayers written in cow dung on their walls in the belief that it would ward off witches, the newspaper reported. The paper did not report any actual deaths attributed to the current rumours.

Local officials could not immediately be reached for comment. ap

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