Five members of a family were accused of witchcraft and brutally murdered by a mob in India, police say

New Delhi — Police have arrested three people suspected of brutally murdering five members of a family who were accused of witchcraft in the eastern Indian state of Bihar. Police said the victims were hacked to death and their bodies then burned by a mob of dozens of residents in the village of Temta on Sunday night. 

Three women were among the victims, said the police, who recovered the charred remains of the family on Monday evening. Residents reportedly suspected the family of causing a local boy’s fatal illness.

“We have arrested three accused so far,” Pramod Kumar Mandal, Deputy Inspector General of the Purnea district, where the incident took place, told CBS News.

Mandal confirmed that the victims had been accused of witchcraft and identified them as Babu Lal Oraon, 50, along with his 70-year-old mother Kanto Devi and his wife and two adult children.

The couple’s 16-year-old son was the sole survivor from the family. He told police that a mob of around 50 people stormed their house at about 10 p.m. on Sunday, accusing his mother of witchcraft and then attacking the family with bladed weapons, the Hindustan Times newspaper quoted a police officer as saying.

The incident happened about 10 days after a child died in the village due to an illness. On Sunday night, the child’s brother also fell ill, and the villagers suspected witchcraft as the cause, triggering the assault on Oraon’s family, NDTV reported, quoting police.

The Bihar Police formed a dedicated team to investigate the murders. 

Sweety Sahrawat, Superintendent of Police in Purnea, who is heading the investigation, told CBS News her team would arrest everyone else suspected of involvement in the attack “as soon as possible.” 

Sahrawat noted that many residents of the village were suspected of involvement in the attack, and many residents were not helping police to identify the attackers.

Cases of attacks on people accused of witchcraft are not uncommon in India and other south Asian countries. Governments and activists have struggled to end the attacks, which are based on centuries-old superstitions.

Belief in witchcraft is also common in some rural communities in West Africa and elsewhere on the continent. Earlier this month, six people accused of witchcraft were burned alive, stoned or beaten to death by a militia in Burundi.