Lakshmi outside her hut at Sadhoil. Picture by Surajit Roy

Malda, Dec. 2: Three aged women of Sadhoil under Old Malda police station have been labelled witches.

Blinded by superstition, the residents have ordered the women, all between 70 and 75, to leave the village failing which they have threatened to kill them.

The announcement was made after Binoy Mallik, a witch doctor who had come from Balurghat last Tuesday, convinced the villagers that ?evil spirits? in the souls of the three women were responsible for the death of seven persons of Sadhoil within two months. Draupadi Mallika and Jyotsna Mallika, two of the three women, have already fled the area.

The common refrain in the tribal-dominated village was that a witch doctor cannot be wrong. ?Why did so many healthy people suddenly die in so short a time? They (the women) are responsible for their deaths. The witch doctor has told us the correct reason,? said a villager who echoed the thoughts of almost all the other residents of Sadhoil.

The villagers, paying heed to Mallik?s ?verdict?, had raided the houses of Draupadi, Jyotsna and Lakshmi on the night of November 30 and ordered them to leave the area.

Though two of the women fled fearing for their lives, Lakshmi has stayed back because she has nowhere to go.

The incident would have gone unnoticed but for the members of Rural Health Development Society. The NGO has been working in the area for some time and news about the women?s banishment soon reached the organisation which then informed the Old Malda police.

Yesterday a police team visited the village to investigate the incident. Subesh Das, a physician working with the society, said: ?We are trying to convince the villagers that there was nothing supernatural going on and that all the seven deaths were due to natural causes. Some of them succumbed to tuberculosis and other simply to old age.?

The members of the society organised an awareness camp, attended by around 60 villagers, at Sadhoil today. But even there, men like Bimal and Sushil told NGO members that they would leave the village if the three women stayed. ?We know that they are witches and caused the deaths. They will have to leave, since there is no way out for us,? they said.

District police superintendent Sashi Kant Poojari said his men have warned residents of the consequences that would follow if the three women were harmed.

?I have nowhere to go. But they will kill me if I don?t go,? said Lakshmi, as tears rolled down her cheeks.