Tura, July 25: A family of four, including two young daughters, has been forced to flee for their lives after villagers turned against them on superstitious claims of practicing witchcraft in a Garo village in Dadenggre region.

Hindalson Marak of Sategre village, under Dadenggre civil sub-division in West Garo Hills, was a successful farmer and plantation owner having a young family of two children and a wife that soon became an eyesore for the villagers after some started spreading stories against him.

He was accused by the villagers of practicing witchcraft despite the young man being a devout Christian who minded his own business tending to his land and cattle.

On July 14th this month, a mob of angry villagers attacked him and chased the family out of the village.

“They assaulted me badly and left me for dead by throwing me down a gorge, luckily I didn’t fall into the water. As soon as I regained consciousness I rushed back frantically searching for my wife and two children. I found my family but my entire house was destroyed. We barely made it out with just the clothes on our bodies,” recalls a shaken Hindalson Marak who has sought refuge in Tura.

The attack appears to be revolving into a land grabbing attempt by the villagers who are not allowing him to return home, sell his cattle or his plantations. They have threatened to burn him inside his house, should he return.

“I cannot go back nor can I sell my property. My eldest daughter is due to appear in her PUC exam in October, the youngest in just class 5, but we have no money to pay the school fees. I had to work as a daily wager just to get money for the fare to come to Tura,” says the worried father surrounded by his two young daughters and distraught wife at the home of a social activist.

Shockingly, one of the men who have threatened to burn him alive inside his home is reportedly working as a church pastor in the Baljek village of Jengjal, 30 kms from Tura. The accused, identified as Havel Sangma, has warned Hindalson that he cannot take possession of his property in the village.

Infamous Mrigre Witchcraft killings of Garo Hills

In January 2016, Rongram police dug up the bodies of five victims from two shallow graves, all from the same family, who had been murdered in cold blood by the villagers of Mrigre under Rongram region of West Garo Hills.

In that case also, the allegation of practicing witchcraft was leveled on the victims by the villagers leading to that heinous crime which shocked the entire region.

The victims- school teacher David M T Sangma and his father Hedison B Marak, mother Hallen T Sangma, his wife Bala T Sangma and their son Washing T Sangma, were bludgeoned to death and their bodies dumped into shallow graves inside a bamboo grove in the village itself.

Jealousy and greed over the family’s prosperity seems to have been the core agenda of the killers who planned the murders for close to a year, as per the police investigation. After their deaths, the surviving daughter was unable to take possession of her family’s lands after it was illegally taken by one of the accused villagers. He returned the land only after she filed a police complaint, but the accused Nokma of the village, who was an accused in the murders, refused to provide her with land documents after the original was destroyed by the killers.

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