GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - Villagers in India's northeast stoned four members of a family, including two women, and then buried them alive on suspicion of practising witchcraft, police said on Wednesday.
Lakhan Majhi, 65, was summoned to the house of the villagehead for a public meeting on Tuesday evening at KoilajuliMilanpur village in Assam.
Hundreds of his neighbours accused him of casting evilspells on a villager who died after getting sick. Majhi hadaroused suspicion by visiting the sick man to perform religiousrituals, police said.
Villagers then pummelled Majhi, his wife, his son and hisdaughter-in-law with stones and bricks, dragged them into thenearby jungle and buried them alive, police said.
More than 500 people have been killed in the state in thepast few years because their neighbours thought they werewitches, police say.
Superstition thrives in pockets of rural India where thereis little education, no electricity, no safe drinking water, nodecent healthcare and rampant disease.
(Reporting by Biswajyoti Das; Editing by Jonathan Allen andAlex Richardson)
