In another shameful case of shaming people on the basis of spurious superstitions, two women and a man in Umrit, Ri-Bhoi, were made to parade in public for several kilometres supposedly because they practised witchcraft.
The incident took place today when residents of Umrit forced the trio on the march, during which they had to beat metal tins that were hung around their necks.
Local headman Epnas Thangkhiew saw no problem in this kind of punishment speaking openly about the case.
He accused the three of practising black magic, saying that the two women had gone to the elderly man, who is from Umkadhor village.
According to Thangkhiew, the women had allegedly gone to the man asking him to conduct some rituals and were given some eggs and told to bury them in front of the office of the Dorbar Shnong. The headman suspects that the women had a grudge of some sort against the Dorbar or against individual/s in the village.
This is not the first such incident of so-called vigilante justice being meted out to those suspected of witchcraft. On other occasions, such suspicions have even resulted in cold-blooded murder. Fortunately, that was not the case today, though the incident is still a shocking example of the level of superstition that still exists in Meghalaya society.
