Hacking Cough? Hack 'Em Off

Angry Mob Beheads Family of Witches

from Sploid

After a mysterious ailment claimed the lives of workers at a tea plantation in Assam, India, workers knew they had to do something. The answer soon became obvious, they had to behead a coworker and his family.

Amir Munda and his family, like other members of the adivasi Santhal community, believed in witchcraft, black magic and sorcery. Munda himself was known to be a healer.

As people in the community where Munda worked continued to grow ill and die, the tea workers suspected he was behind the illnesses. So they convened a vichari - a kangaroo court - to determine if Munda was in fact responsible.

After merciless torture at the hands of the bloodthirsty mob, Munda and four of his children confessed. When the verdict came back guilty, the sentence was clear: Munda and his family had to be beheaded.

Fortunately his pregnant wife and three of his seven children managed to run off before the executions could be carried out.

On Saturday a crowd of about 200 took the Mundas to a field and chopped off their heads with machetes. They then turned to bodies over to authorities.

"They said the killings would appease the gods," said police officer D Das.

Once the Mundas were dead, their bodies were turned over to the authorities. When none of the terrified relatives came forward to claim the bodies, they were returned to the mob who burned them on a giant pyre while they celebrated the end of disease in their community.

Now six of the ringleaders are under arrest and sitting in jail.