Five arrested for branding woman witch, torturing her to death in Rajasthan
The victim was made to eat faeces and sit on embers.
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40-year-old Kanya Devi was branded witch, tortured and then murdered in Ajmer's Kekari town.
Jaipur: The police on Monday arrested five people on charges of inhumanly torching a 40-year-old woman to death after branding her a witch in Ajmer’s Kekari town. The accused are relatives of the woman who was made to eat faeces and sit on embers that allegedly caused her death.
The woman, identified as Kanya Devi, suffered inhuman torture after the death of her husband and brother-in-law. Social activists said that both had died of tuberculosis within a gap of few days, but the relatives of the victim’s brother-in-law blamed her for the deaths and accused her of being involved in occult practices.
The community leaders in the village hushed up the matter by cremating the body without informing the police and then asked the responsible people to take a bath in the holy pond of Puskar to wash their ‘sins’ off. The community leaders issued a fatva that if anybody disclosed the death, he or she would be outcast.
The alleged incident took place on August 2.
Kanya Devi’s husband, Chheetarmal Raiger, died nearly a month ago. Within a few days, the elder brother of her husband also died.
Holding her responsible for death, some people from in-laws family branded the woman witch and subjected her to torture. They paraded her naked, made her to eat faeces, beat her with iron chains and forced her to sit on embers. She died of burn injuries within a few hours.
Kanya Devi’s nephew Mahadev registered a complaint with the police.
Women rights activists condemned the incident and demanded that the responsible people be arrested immediately.
The police didn’t take any action in the matter initially, but when the matter was highlighted by the media, five people including three youths were arrested on Monday.
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