Medininagar (Jharkhand): A 65-year-old person was killed by unidentified persons in Jharkhand's Palamu district on suspicion that he was practicing witchcraft, police said on Thursday.
Police recovered the man's body from Baskatia jungle on Thursday, Lesliganj sub-divisional police officer Alok Kumar Tuti said.
This is the second such case in the tribal-state in a span of eight days.
The killing in Palamu took place on Wednesday when the man was returning home with his cattle about two km from his home in Maadan village. His assailants were waiting for him and attacked him with an axe and a dagger and killed him on the spot, the SDPO said.
His family members launched a search for him when the cattle came home without him and informed the police when they could not find him.
The police and the family members later found the body hidden in a bush, Tuti said.
An FIR was registered in the case but any arrest is yet to be made.
The SDPO said police has begun probing the case and believe that villagers were involved in the incident as some of them have been found absconding.
On October 27 a 55-year-old woman was beaten to death in Mangad village, about 50 km from Jamshedpur by two of her neighbours for allegedly practising black magic.
The woman was beaten mercilessly till she died and her husband was driven away when he tried to save her and her . Her half-naked body was found the next day.
An organisation working to empower the tribal community across the country had written to Jharkhand Governor Ramesh Bais had demanded a high-level enquiry into the killing of the woman terming the incident as shameful and a case of human rights violation.
The state government had passed the Jharkhand Witcraft (Diaan) Act, 2001 to prevent such killings.
PTI
