Tripura woman killed on suspicion of being a 'witch', eight arrested

Agartala, April 8 (IANS) Eight people have been arrested on the charges of kidnapping and killing a 45-year-old tribal woman suspecting her to be a "witch" in Tripura's Khowai district, police said on Saturday.

Police said that the accused kidnapped Kaushalya Ghatwal, hacked her to death and dumped her body in an abandoned safety tank at Lengtibari village under Champahoar police station.

The incident occurred on Thursday night and the police recovered the body and arrested all the eight accused late on Friday.

The accused included the victim's in-laws and husband, who is the prime accused in the case.

Police spokesman and Assistant Inspector General of police Jyotisman Das Chowdhury said the local court has sent the accused to three-day police custody.

Witchcraft and witch-hunting, black magic are prevalent in the northeastern region, mostly among the tribals, who constitute around 28 per cent of the 45.58 million population (2011 Census) in the northeastern states.

Stringent laws and campaigns against witch-hunts and related killings have reduced substantially but still it prevails in some of the tribal communities in the northeast region and majority of witch-hunting victims are women.

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