In today’s age, in the 21st century, many people still believe in superstitions in this country. They often resort to babas, sadhus, tantriks (saints and magicians) and laugh off their wealth, lives and respect. Not only this, but people also take the lives of other people in this pursuit. Let me tell you about a seven-month-old girl who became a victim of superstitious belief. In the Banaskantha district of Gujarat last month, she was branded with a hot iron to treat a heart ailment, and later the burn injury became septic, the doctor who treated the baby said. He said that this baby girl had a heart problem and a week before, her parents took her to Lakhani, where she was treated with a hot iron doing this alleged treatment. This is not the first incident.
In Telangana, a man and his wife have been arrested in the murder of an infant whose head was found in the terrace belonging to the accused. The couple allegedly killed the infant as part of a ritual prescribed by a tantrik to cure the woman of a chronic illness, and the ritual took place on the night of a lunar eclipse. This is not the first case where a child was sacrificed due to superstitious belief. In Assam’s
In another case of human sacrifice, mostly those of children known to the accused under the garb of superstition, a science teacher, Jadav Sahariya, and his family in Assam’s Udalguri district were stopped by neighbours and later by the police, in the nick of time, from sacrificing a three-year-old child. When the locals saw smoke coming from the house, they rushed to the spot and saw members of the family disrobing in order to prepare for the ritual, reports say. The accused tried to set fire to their house after the police reached, and the teacher and his son were injured in the chaos, police said. The son succumbed to the injuries.
Such tales of getting trapped in this network of tantra-mantra exists in our country, where I strongly feel blind superstition wrecks lives. Due to such practices, not only children, but a lot of women have also been killed. The horrific culmination of superstitions is in the murders.
The UN had presented a report a few years back which states that in India from 1987 to 2003, 2,556 women were said to be killed under suspicion of them being a ‘witch’. In Jharkhand alone, a report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) states that between 2001 and 2015, more than 500 women were killed because of superstition. Jharkhand, along with Odisha, Telangana, Chattisgarh, reported cases where women were killed after they were accused of being ‘witches’.
While on one side the country is fast-moving on the path of development, there are increasing cases of death of innocent children and women due to superstition. The superstition of the people puts them on this turn, where some baba (sages) insists that this will do them good and encourages them to commit such crimes. I feel that greed for land or property is one of the major causes of these acts. Now, they also resort to superstition for the exploitation of women.
Superstition never has and never will bring any kind of benefit. It only brings loss. I will say, abstain yourself and others from falling into this pit of superstition!