Three held for killing woman on suspicion of practising witchcraft in Tripura

Agartala, Oct 31 (PTI) Three persons were arrested for allegedly killing a 63-year-old tribal woman on suspicion of practising witchcraft at a village in West Tripura district, police said.

After receiving information that Nandarani Debbarma, an accused of practising sorcery, went missing at Abhicharan village under the Sidhai Police Station limits, a team carried out a special operation in the locality, a senior officer said.

“The body of the elderly woman was exhumed from a forest area at Abhicharan on October 26. An FIR was lodged after the recovery of the body. On Thursday, we arrested three persons from the locality for their alleged involvement in the killing of the woman," Sidhai Police Station officer-in-charge Ajit Kumar Chakma said on Friday.

According to a preliminary investigation, a few locals felt that "two families in the village were suffering from illness because of Nandarani's black magic".

“Under the influence of that perception, a group of people stormed into the house of Nandarani on October 26 and lynched her. To ensure her death, the villagers tied her body to a window. Later, her body was buried in a jungle to suppress the evidence”, the officer said.

The arrested persons are being interrogated, and the investigation is underway, he added. PTI PS BDC