Guwahati, Sept. 28: Crusader Birubala Rabha today plunged into a social media campaign against the brutality of witchhunting in Assam.
Moving away from her door-to-door drive in the affected villages to conferences in the towns, Birubala, 67, has toiled hard in her fight against the superstition that has killed nearly 150 since 2002.
A website of Mission Birubala, an NGO led by her since 2012, was launched here today while a Facebook account and a blog will soon be opened to connect with more people to join in her fight.
"We have rescued more than 50 victims of witchhunt in the past few years. Some have returned home but we have not been able to send seven women back. Education of their children has been affected while their mothers battle such crime. Such women should be provided livelihood options and their children need to be supported. We need more resources and public support. We will take the help of social media platforms to involve more and people in our fight," the co-ordinator of Mission Birubala, Natyabir Das, said.
Birubala and writer Abani Kumar Bhagawati inaugurated the website here.
Rabha, who narrated how she began her door-to-door campaign in her native Thakurbila village in Goalpara district, stressed that the Prevention of and Protection from Witch Hunting Bill passed by the Assam Assembly in August last year should be notified soon.
Sources said the legislation was pending as the Union ministry of home affairs had sought clarification regarding some clauses. "Our mission to remove the illegal and inhuman practice of witchhunting will not be achieved without a strict law. I request the state government to take necessary steps so that the act becomes a law as early as possible," Birubala told The Telegraph after the event.
The bill passed by the Assembly is said to be strictest such law in the country. It has provision for three years in jail to life imprisonment for branding a person a witch and abetting suicide.
It also ensures action against public servants for wilfully not registering a case in such incidents.
The bill was introduced after Rajeeb Kalita, a city-based lawyer, had filed a PIL in Gauhati High Court in 2013, seeking an anti-witchhunt law.
The PIL said when maladies such as illness, death or financial loss occur in a family, superstition leads many to believe that evil spells cast on them by others is the cause.
Those accused of practising witchcraft are often hunted down and ostracised by the community and the village.
Birubala, who was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, is working on a shelter home at Dudhnoi in Goalpara district for the victims of witchhunt and their rehabilitation.
