Gumla: In a shocking incident of witch-hunting, an elderly woman has been beaten to death by locals in Gumla district of Jharkhand, police said. Police have launched an investigation into the incident and launched a manhunt to nab the culprits. The incident took place on Saturday night at Nagar Chadri Toli village of Sisai police station area of Gumla.
The victim has been identified as 55-year-old Salo Devi. It is learnt that a group of locals barged into the house of the victim at around 10 o'clock on Saturday night and called the son of the victim woman out of the house of drinking. While the son was out of the house, another group of villagers dragged the woman out of the house while she was having dinner.
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The accused beat the woman to pulp with sticks and thrashed her with boots leaving her seriously injured. Salo Devi's husband Ahlad Lohra (60), sister Sabita Kumari (50) and sister-in-law Lakshmi Kumari (42) escaped the attack. Salo Devi was shifted to Sisai Referral Hospital where doctors declared her brought dead, an official said.
The police took the body into custody and sent it for postmortem. An official said that the accused beat the woman on the suspicion of witchcraft. It is said that the health of one and a half year old girl from Chadri Toli had started deteriorating. The girl's father Niranjan attributed to his daughter's sickness to Salo Devi's “witchcraft”.
SDPO Manish Chandra Lal said that the police is investigating the case and the culprits in the case will be arrested soon. On Sunday, the police did the post-mortem of the dead body and handed it over to the relatives. On the other hand, on the written application of the bereaved family, the police has registered an FIR against several people and started searching for the attackers.
