Raisuan: A year has passed after a tribal couple was hacked to death for allegedly practising sorcery at Rangamatia in Bansapal block of Keonjhar district.
Fears of similar attacks still haunt their surviving family members, who have been leading miserable lives without any help from the administration.
With superstition holding sway in remote hilly pockets, the tribal family is jittery about possible attacks from villagers.
In June, 2017 some residents of Rangamatia suspected Bamia Pradhan and his wife Gangi Pradhan of causing their neighbour’s death. They hacked the couple to death with an axe. The couple’s elder son and daughter were seriously wounded in the attack. They recovered after prolonged treatment at the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack.
Somnath, the younger son of the couple, recounted the horror, “Luckily, I was in another room that night. Or else, I would have been killed. Now, I have to take care of my brother and sister who became paralysed after the attack.”
A house which was allotted to the family in the name of his father is incomplete. Even though Somnath had taken up the issue of house bills with the administration several times, nothing has been done, he said.
“My family fears being attacked by those people again,” Somnath said.
Somnath and other locals demanded the administration should make people aware about the evils of superstition. They also demanded immediate help for the suffering Pradhan family.
PNN
