How a death sparked superstitions, 5 murders, but kin allege land row

Sonu Oraon was dozing off after dinner around 10pm on Sunday when a cacophony of sharp voices outside the hut shook him awake.

- Aditya Nath Jha

A fellow villager, Ramdev Oraon, had dragged his sick nephew Sunil Oraon, and laid him on the courtyard outside.

“You're a witch. You ate my son Sumit; now will you eat my nephew too? I'm giving you half an hour to fix him, or else I'l burn you alive,” Ramdev shouted —his ire directed at Sonu’s grandmother, Kanto Devi.

Almost everyone in their village of Tetgama ~15 km from district headquarters Purnia and 340 km northeast of Patna - knew that Ramdev's eight-year-old son Sumit had died roughly two weeks earlier.

But Sonu hoped that the threats were just empty jibes from a bellicose man.

They were not. Half an hour later, Ramdev allegedly returned with a large group of armed men and women ~ the first information report names 23 people and adds that another 150-200 people ‘were present - who proceeded to allegedly drag Babu Lal, 50, his mother Kanto Devi, 70, wife Sita Devi, 45, son Manjit Kumar, 25 and daughter-in-law-Rania Devi, 22, out of the house and burn them to death.

“They carried rods, sticks and weapons, and tied my father, mother, brother, sister-in-law and grandmother with ropes. They proceeded to thrash them without mercy till they were half dead. They also beat me but I somehow escaped when they were sprinkling oil on the bodies,” Sonu later told the police in the FIR.

“I saw the villagers thrash my family members and burn them alive. After burning them, they took the bodies away in a tractor trolley and dumped them in an unknown area,” the FIR added. By 4am on Monday, it was all over.

Haunting superstitions