GUWAHATI: A man in Meghalaya was buried alive on the suspicion that he was practicing witchcraft.
The police arrested three persons in connection with the murder. The victim, Moris Marngar, was their uncle.
The police said the man, who hailed from Mawliehbah Mawnar in West Khasi Hills, was dragged out of his residence and kept confined to the house of a villager before being buried alive.
The body was later exhumed by the police who sent it for post-mortem.
According to reports, the accused took the life of the victim as he had allegedly cast evil spells on his niece. An FIR was lodged and the police were searching for some co-accused evading arrest.
Witch-hunting, a social malaise, is common in parts of the Northeast. In Assam, it, on average, claims a dozen lives in the tea belt and tribal areas every year.
The killings have not stopped despite mass awareness campaigns by the authorities and various NGOs.
In 2017, the Gauhati High Court had observed that branding a person as a witch and then resorting to witch-hunting is a dehumanising act and one of the worst forms of human rights violations.