Villagers in India perturbed as three women find braids 'mysteriously' chopped off

The panicked villagers sought superstitious remedies

INDIA: Panicked villagers in India sought superstitious remedies after the braids of three women were mysteriously chopped off.

The incidents took place over a period of 12 hours, in the victims' respective house in Kanganheri village, on the outskirts of Delhi. The victims said their braids were chopped off after they experienced severe headaches and then fell unconscious.

The police, however, could neither comment confidently on the motive behind the mischief, nor trace the people behind it, they did state that CCTV cameras had captured three men suspiciously roaming around in the village.

“Witchcraft is totally ruled out. We are probing this in a scientific manner,” said Surendar Kumar, DCP (South-West).



Media reports stated, around a dozen similar activities like this in Guragaon, Palwal and Mewat but this was the first time an incident was reported in Delhi.

The first victim was a 55-year-old woman with red hair who was returning home from her farm when she experienced a severe headache.

She immediately got into bed in her drawing room upon returning home.

“Suddenly, I felt extreme pain in my head. I held my head and screamed for my grandchildren. But my screams were drowned in the sound of the cooler,” she told Hindustan Times.

Her granddaughter found the old woman lying unconsciously with her braid chopped off onto the floor.

“No one approached me on my way back home from the farm. No one followed me into my house and no one touched me when I lay on the bed. I don’t remember anyone chopping off my hair either,” she said.

The local police suspected the role of her relatives behind this but villagers were discussing a similar incident in another village.



The second incident involved a 45-year-old woman who experienced a similar headache after her son dropped her home on a bike. After falling unconscious, she also found that her red braid had been chopped off when she woke up.

The third incident involved a 50-year-old woman who lost her white braid and was rushed to the hospital before she regained consciousness.

Police observed the similarity in the pattern of all the cases and suspected that the culprits intoxicated the women first. The villagers, however, rejected these claims but a case of poisoning, theft and outraging the modesty of a woman has been registered at Chhawla police station.

This article originally appeared on Hindustan Times.