Cuttack, April 9: A public interest litigation (PIL) filed in High Court has sought judicial intervention against alarming incidents of torture and killing of persons in Odisha on suspicion of practising witchcraft.

Secretary of the Odisha Rationalist Society (ORS) Debendra Sutar alleged that in the last five years as many as 286 persons have been murdered in the name of witchcraft, which is more than the number of deaths caused by naxal activities.

Such incidents had become “rampant” due to “callousness of the state government”, Sutar alleged, while seeking direction “to constitute special teams for investigation and prosecution of such offences in special courts for early trial of the cases”.

The PIL follows Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s order for an inquiry by a District & Sessions Judge into the death of two persons after police opened fire to disperse a violent mob which attacked them at a village in Ganjam district.

At Phasipada under Kodala police station area residents had forcibly detained four persons, including a woman and were subjected them to inhuman treatment.

The villagers had tonsured the four and pulled out their teeth, accusing them of practising witchcraft. Police had rushed to the village to rescue them.The PIL filed by ORS, a Bhubaneswar based NGO on April 3 has not been taken up by the High Court for hearing so far.

According to the petition tantriks (black magicians) were taking advantage of the illiteracy of the people in the tribal belt of Odisha and were misleading the people for personal gain.

Most of the time these tantriks persuade the people for offering human sacrifice (children in many cases) before deities to acquire material gain.