Four Youth Savagely Mauled, Killed Elderly Man Accused Of Practicing Sorcery

Four young Indian men have been accused of forcibly abducting an elderly man before killing him in cold blood, as they believed him to be a practitioner of heretic sorcery, local authorities confirmed.

The gruesome incident reportedly took place at Dummugudem, Telangana, India on May 12. The victim has been identified as Kunja Bheemaiah, an elderly man of Kothamaredubaka tribal village, Telangana, India, The Hindu reported.

Suspecting Bheemaiah of practicing sorcery, the four superstitious youth reportedly mugged the old man before strangling him to death on late May 12. They proceeded to bury the victim's body on the banks of the Godavari that night.

The gruesome killing only came to light this month after an individual in the group confided about the murder to another close friend. Bheemaiah had been reported missing by his family. The four men were apprehended by police on Tuesday, June 8. The crew immediately confessed to the crime upon initial questioning.

Bheemaiah’s body was exhumed after the suspects revealed the location of his unmarked grave. The cadaver was returned to his family for a proper burial after a post-mortem examination was concluded Tuesday afternoon.

In a similar but unrelated incident, a widow named Ramawati Halua, 50, was reportedly beaten to death by a mob in Assam last year after being accused of practicing witchcraft, reported EastMojo.

A kangaroo court of villagers allegedly branded her as a witch and wanted her held accountable for the famine and suffering of the town, including the untimely death of a 28-year old woman who passed away under mysterious circumstances a few days before the violent mugging.

Twenty-eight-year-old Bijoy Gaur attempted to intervene in the assault, accusing the attackers of acting irrationally out of superstitious beliefs. However, the angry villagers proceed with their vitriol as they trashed both the widow and the young man to death. The two dead were then reportedly cremated by the group in a single pyre at a nearby hill as they offered rituals to a local deity.

In another incident, 70-year-old Ranthu Mundu, accused of practicing exorcism and selling herbal drugs, was recently reportedly dragged out of his house and hacked to death with an axe in Gumla, Jharkhand, Times of India noted.

Cousins Sudhir Munda, and Balram Munda were identified as suspects in the killing. A Sangeetha, Sudhir’s sister, reportedly suffered from filariasis and died on March 29.

After the sister's death, Ranthu had told Sudhir that they needed to perform an exorcism at their residence to prevent other family members from falling ill and dying. The cousins suspected Ranthu of killing Sangeetha through witchcraft and decided to brutally murder the local healer.

According to The New Indian Express, a 53-year-old widowed woman, a mother of four, was also thrashed to death in a suspected case of “witch-hunting” in Sonitpur district of Assam on April 24.