Jharkhand, India. November 7 2013

My name is Dimbeswari Bhattarai. I live in a tiny village in the heart of Jharkhand, a place where the air is thick with the scent of damp earth and the spirits of our ancestors. Our village is small, with a few dozen homes scattered around a central well. In such a place, secrets are impossible to keep, and it is known who the witches are. Ashrita and Prutha Basak had cursed our town, and it was for this that they were punished. I witnessed the justice of our people, and I have no regrets.

It all started five years ago with the death of Saeed. He was a good man, a hardworking farmer whose hands were rough with honest labor. He and his wife lived on the edge of town, their small hut a bit separate from the others. He had a healthy, happy daughter, but his wife, Ashrita, was not kind. She was a constant source of bitterness, always making fights with Saeed. We could hear her screaming and crying from across the fields, her voice shrill with rage. Their home was a place of discord, a dark cloud hanging over the peaceful life of our village.

One day, Saeed fell ill with a fever. He wasted away in a matter of days, his strong body weakening until he was little more than a whisper. Then he died. The day he passed, the screaming and crying from his house stopped. There was a chilling silence. Ashrita was pleased. We could see it in her eyes; a cold, hard satisfaction that sent a shiver through me. She began to fall away from the village. It is not the way of our people for a woman to live alone with a child. It is against the will of our gods. So the village people would not take up with Ashrita, and the children would no longer play with Prutha. The girl, once full of life, was now an outcast, shunned by her peers.

This isolation only made Ashrita angrier. Her face, once filled with rage, now twisted into a mask of pure hatred. She would glare at us from her doorstep, her eyes like black stones. It was not long after this that the children of the village began to fall sick with a fever, the very same sickness that had claimed her husband. One by one, our little ones were struck down, their small bodies burning with the heat of the illness.

We knew what was happening. We could see that Ashrita was a Dayan, a witch, and that out of her anger and hatred, she was casting evil upon our children. She had begun with her husband, and now she was moving on to us. There is only one way to remove the curse of a Dayan: to kill her. The men of our village, our leaders and protectors, knew the Dayan must be stopped.

In the evening, just before sunset, a group of men gathered at the center of the village. Shiv, Haani, and Dharun were at the front. The village women and children followed behind them, a silent, grim procession. People were yelling now, the fear and rage of a community pushed to its breaking point. We were no longer afraid; we were an instrument of justice. The cries of "Kill the Dayan! Kill the witch!" echoed through the air.

Shiv pushed in the door to the house, and Haani and Dharun went inside. There was much noise: the crashing of a table, the breaking of wood, the sound of a struggle. The village women and children cried out, and we knew they had found the Dayan and her daughter. Haani was the first to emerge from the house, pulling Prutha out by the hair. The girl was kicking and screaming for her mother, but Haani did not let go. The children of the village, consumed by the terror and anger that had been growing in them, were shouting at her and throwing stones as Haani dragged the girl towards the forest.

Soon after, Dharun came out with Ashrita. Her face was bloody, her nose broken, and her eye swollen shut. He shoved her to the ground, and people began to kick her and shout at her. Dharun, too, had blood on his face, a deep scratch on his cheek from the struggle. That is when Shiv grabbed Ashrita. He pulled her to her feet, and like Haani, he dragged her to the forest, ignoring her muffled cries of pain.

In the forest, we surrounded the women. We threw stones at them and beat them with sticks, our rage a cleansing fire. We beat them for their crimes against our children, for the sickness they had brought to our village, and for the evil that flowed from their very souls. That is the way of the Sarna, our faith. The village would be cursed if we did not punish the women for their evil.

In the forest, both women were put to death for their crimes. Dharun, his face grim, cut both of their throats, and as their blood soaked the earth, the feeling of the curse lifted from our village. We went back to our village, and as a final act of purification, we set fire to the witches' house. I watched it burn, the flames licking at the night sky, a symbol of our freedom. This day, our children would no longer be ill. A woman must not be a Dayan in Jharkhand. A woman will be killed for a Dayan's crimes. This is our law. This is our justice. This is our truth.