Bhubaneswar: Expressing concern over mushrooming witch-hunting cases in the state, the Orissa Human Rights Commission (OHRC) sought an action-taken report (ATR) from the state government regarding implementation of the Orissa Prevention of Witch-Hunting Act, 2013.
The rights body directed Additional Chief Secretary and secretaries of SC and ST Development and Women and Child Development departments to submit the report within four weeks.
The directive came in response to a petition filed by rights activists Biswapriya Kanungo and Bijay Panda. The petitioners informed the OHRC that the Orissa Prevention of Witch-Hunting Act, which came into force in 2013 with an aim to curbing crimes related to witchcraft, was barely used here.
A state-level workshop organised here recently revealed that over 192 persons were killed on the suspicion of being witches.
Witchcraft related crimes were mostly reported from tribal-dominated districts in the state and Keonjhar has the dubious distinction of the maximum number of killings in this connection, the petitioners pointed out.
The petitioners urged the commission to issue directives to the state government to compensate the families of the victims and carry out expeditious probe into witchcraft related deaths.
The petitioners also sought a direction to the government to furnish measures undertaken by it to sensitise people about the social stigma and to wipe out witch-hunting.
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