There are no nationwide laws against it. The National Crime Records Bureau started collecting data on human sacrifice and witch-hunting as motives for murder in 2013, but stopped within two years. Even in that period, thousands of such crimes were recorded. The full spread and growth of such superstition-based crimes is unclear, but anecdotal evidence and the frequency with which such cases are reported in local newspapers suggest that they are flourishing. Godmen, many of whom believe in black magic and practice superstitious rituals, are getting more organised and growing in public stature. Ritual Killings: How Crimes of Superstition Thrive in the New India | Pulitzer Center
“We got an anti-superstition law in Maharashtra, full of loopholes, after eighteen years of struggle,” Ranjana Gavande told me. “How can we even expect a central law?” Gavande is a grassroots worker with the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, an organisation founded by Dabholkar, and has been an anti-superstition activist for twenty years. “Getting a central law is a distant dream,” she said. Karnataka passed an anti-superstition law of its own in 2017, but this too was a diluted version.
by Srishti Jaswal
october 2021