Ranchi, India - Ramani Devi was badly tortured after being branded a witch. But despite the scars in her body, the survivor is fighting back for hundreds of vulnerable women.
Ramani Devi, 45, is leading a programme all over Jharkhand through 'Nukkad Nataks' (street plays) to raise awareness about the practice and thus save many others who might meet a fate worse than her own.
'I simply do not want repetition of what I had to face. It is all because of superstitious beliefs and nothing else,' says Ramani.
Recalling the trauma she faced, Ramani narrates: 'I was tortured and forced to eat human excreta just because I was branded a witch by the ojhas (witch doctors).'
Today Ramani is not alone in the fight.
Vaisakhi, another survivor, says: 'It is a blot on our society. We have to face such inhuman torture even in this 21st century. It is a shame that when women have reached space, we are subjected to such horror.'
Vaisakhi, in her 50s, had also been brutally beaten up by a villager, who branded her a witch.
There are scores of women who have been branded witch by villagers and tortured. Many were killed, sometimes by beheading or dismembering their limbs.
Many like Ramani Devi are forced to drink urine or consume human excreta. Some are ostracised and thrown out of their villages.
'When these women tell the gory acts and inhuman things they were subjected to, people can feel it. They succeed in pulling a good number of crowds,' says Vasvi, a social worker engaged with Free Legal Aid Committee (FLAC), an NGO that organises the street plays and works to spread awareness against witch killings.
'Witch killing follows a rising graph if we look at the figures,' says Ajoy Kumar, director of FLAC.
'In 1991-2000, a total of 522 people, mostly women, were killed after they were branded witches. We don't have the exact figure of killing since then,' Kumar says.
According to the crime branch of the Jharkhand police, however, 190 witch killings were reported in the past five years. 'Only an awareness programme can curb it,' says Kumar.
The street plays try to create awareness at different levels. It first tries to inform people about the reality and scientific aspects of witchcraft.
It also tries to educate the people about legal aspects and how courts could punish the perpetrators.
The Prevention of Witch Practices Act was formulated in 1999 to curb the menace, but in most of the cases the witch doctors went scot-free.
'The arrested people rarely name the witch doctors fearing their wrath,' says a police official with the Criminal Investigation Department. 'Even the conviction rate is a low 15 percent.'