In July 2025, a mob in Bihar’s Purnea district hacked to death and burned five members of a Scheduled Tribe family, including three women, on accusations of witchcraft. The incident prompted suo motu cognizance by the National Human Rights Commission and confirmed a recurring truth: such killings are not aberrations but the visible apex of a deeply entrenched system of patriarchal violence. Witch hunting in India operates as a structured mechanism of social control, disproportionately targeting women who are elderly, widowed, or assertive in claiming land and inheritance rights. Witchcraft accusations serve as a socially legitimised pretext for violence and dispossession.

The Statutory Framework and Its Limits

India lacks central legislation on witch hunting. States such as Jharkhand and Bihar rely on the Prevention of Witch (Daain) Practices Act, 1999, a statute that, despite criminalising witch branding, is structurally inadequate. NCRB data records approximately 2,500 witchcraft-related murders between 2000 and 2016, averaging 150 deaths annually. A 2024 Nirantar Trust survey documents systematic underreporting, as authorities classify such cases as personal disputes, erasing the gendered dimension of the violence entirely.

Four structural deficiencies compound this failure. First, Section 4 of the Act prescribes a maximum of six months’ imprisonment for branding a woman as a witch and subjecting her to torture, grossly disproportionate to the harm caused. The same conduct, prosecuted under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), attracts up to seven years for grievous hurt, creating a de facto “legal discount” for superstition-motivated violence. Second, the Act inadequately addresses ojhas (faith healers) who routinely instigate mob violence yet face equally lenient penalties a sharp contrast with BNS Section 49, under which an instigator bears the same punishment as the principal offender where the abetted act is committed. Third, most offences remain bailable, enabling perpetrators to return and intimidate witnesses, precipitating the evidentiary collapse behind persistently high acquittal rates. Fourth, the Act provides no rehabilitation, relocation, or witness protection, forcing survivors back into hostile environments.

Constitutional and International Obligations

These failures carry serious constitutional and international human rights consequences. Witch hunting strikes at the Constitution’s most fundamental guarantees. Article 21, which the Supreme Court in Francis Coralie Mullin v. Union Territory of Delhi (1981) read to encompass dignity, imposes a positive obligation to protect life against non-state violence. Article 14 demands equal protection of law; the state’s tolerance of superstition-motivated killings constitutes a discriminatory denial of that protection to those most at risk. The structural impunity built into the 1999 Act is itself a constitutional violation.

At the international level, Article 2 of CEDAW requires states to eliminate discriminatory customary practices; Article 6 of the ICCPR guarantees the right to life and security. International human rights law imposes a duty of due diligence demanding proactive prevention, not merely reactive punishment. The absence of accessible healthcare and scientific education in rural and tribal regions creates a vacuum in which superstition flourishes. This neglect is itself a form of state failure.

A Two-Pronged Way Forward

Addressing this crisis demands both legislative reform and structural investment. India must enact a National Prevention of Witch-Hunting Act that classifies witch branding as a non-bailable, non-compoundable offence, aligns sentencing with BNS provisions to close the existing legal discount, and introduces strict liability for ojhas and other instigators ensuring those who mobilise mob violence bear the same accountability as those who execute it.

Legislative reform alone is insufficient. Academic analysis consistently calls for dedicated oversight machinery: states should establish District Vigilance Committees comprising legal, medical, and gender rights experts to monitor high-risk communities and coordinate rehabilitation. Mandatory witness protection and state-funded relocation must ensure survivors are not compelled to remain near their attackers during trial. Since witch hunting is frequently deployed as an instrument of land dispossession, the law must also provide for property restoration with state-backed legal title, a model already signalled by the Assam Witch Hunting (Prohibition, Prevention and Protection) Act, 2015. Only through this dual commitment to punitive accountability and structural redress can India fulfil its constitutional obligations and move from reactive policing to proactive protection.