Four members of the same family have been murdered in North India for allegedly practicing witchcraft.
Lakhan Majhi, aged 65, was forced to face a public trail for witchcraft after hundreds of his neighbours accused him of putting a curse on a fellow villager who later fell ill and died.
Majhi, along with his wife, son and daughter in law were then beaten with sticks and stones, dragged into the jungle and buried alive.
This isn’t an isolated incident, Bengal police report that in the past few years around 750 people have been killed for practicing witchcraft in the Northern parts of India and West Bengal.
Bengal police officer, Asit Baran Choudhury has been studying the cases and says that most attacks of this kind are on widows or isolated families that own desirable land.
In some cases the accused families have challenged the authority of village leaders, that is believed to have been the actual motive for the Majhi family murders.
