By IANS,
Ranchi : Seven people including a woman were brutally beaten near a Jharkhand village as local residents suspected them of carrying out an occult ritual.
According to local media reports Wednesday, about ten people reached Hundru waterfall Tuesday near Sikidiri village, around 70 km from Ranchi. Their luggage included two goats and three hens.
They started chanting hymns and performed rituals, the media reports said, adding that 50-60 villagers gathered there and asked the people what they were up to. Then, the villagers suspected the group were performing an occult ritual and started beating them, the reports said. Three members of the group managed to escape.
“They had come to dump a ghost in our village,” Sohan Mahto, a local resident, was quoted as saying. “In the past, we witnessed a similar thing and the villagers had to face many problems. This time we caught them and chased them away.”
Some villagers believe certain occult rituals ensure that ghosts are confined to a particular spot. Sacrificing animals is a part of the ritual.
“The presence of a ghost in the village is a bad omen for us. Villagers dump the ghost to other places so that no bad thing takes place,” said Manohar Munda, another villager.