Jharkhand, India. November 7 2013

I did see the killing of the witches in the forest. Our village is tiny; it is known who the witches are. Ashrita and Prutha Basak have cursed the town. It was for this that they were punished.
It started when Saeed was killed five years ago. He was a good man, and his daughter was healthy. They lived on the edge of town. His wife Ashrita was not kind; she was always making fights with Saeed. We could hear her screaming and cry in the village.

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One day, Saeed fell ill and died of a fever. That is when Ashrita stopped the screaming and crying. She was pleased that Saeed had passed. She began to fall away from the village. It is no way to live, a woman alone with a child. It is against the Gods. So the village people would not take up with Ashrita, and the children would no longer play with Prutha. It was making Ashrita angrier. Soon the children of the village began to fall sick with a fever. Ashrita was casting evil upon the village. Out of her anger and hatred for her husband and our town, she acted out against our children. We could see that Ashrita was a Dayan and had cursed the village, starting with her husband. There is only one way to remove the curse of a Dayan: to kill her. The men of our village knew the Dayan must be stopped.

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In the evening, just before sunset, Shiv, Haani, and Dharun went to the house of Ashrita and Prutha. The village women and children followed. People were yelling in anger to kill Dayan. Shiv pushed in the door to the house, and Haani and Dharun went inside. There was much noise, the breaking of wood. Soon women were crying, and we knew they had found Dayan and her daughter. Haani was the first to come out of the house; he had Prutha by the hair. She was kicking and crying for her mother. The village's children were shouting at her and throwing stones as Haani drug the girl towards the forest. Soon after Dharun came out with Ashrita, she was bloody in the face. He shoved her to the ground, and people began to kick her and shout at her. Dharun also had blood on his face. That is why Shiv then grabbed Ashrita.

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He drugs her to the forest also. In the forest, we threw stones at the women. We beat them for their crimes against our children. That is the way of the Sarna. The village would be cursed if we did not punish the women for their daily evil. In the forest, both women were put to death for their crimes. Dharun cut both their throats, and that is when we went back to our village to set fire to the witches' house. I watched it burn. This day will no longer make our children ill. A woman must not be a Dayan in Jharkhand. A woman will be killed for Dayan's crimes.
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Sincerely,
Dimbeswari Bhattarai