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Samta* was cleaning rice inside her home when the men attacked.She had known they would come.
Nikita Sonavane (right) and Rameshbhai Dhoom from the Centre for Social Justice gather information outside the home of a woman murdered in a witch hunt in Gujarat in September 2017.
Before she was attacked, Samta had already experienced violence in her village.
After her siblings died, Samtas nephews had demanded she hand over her land.
They wouldnt even let me go on to my land to farm it.
Samta was attacked in a witch hunt in Gujarat, India. She says she was accused of witchcraft for offering free herbal medicines to villagers.*
They would pick up big rocks when I walked there and they would throw the rocks at me.
She gestures with her hands to show the rocks were twice the size of her head.
First came the violence about the land.
Maahi was accused of witchcraft and beaten by men who wanted her land.*
Then Samta started offering health advice, posing a threat to the holy man’s business.
And then came the men.
Villagers gathered outside Samtas home to watch the attack.
Nikita Sonavane, 25, moved to Dang in Gujarat, a state in western India, a few days after a woman was accused of witchcraft and murdered.
She is lucky to have survived.
Samta’s story is unfortunately not unique.
She, too, was accused of being a witch, and attacked.
One day, Maahis nephews beat her so badly that she lost her two front teeth.
She cries, pressing her finger to lower her bottom lip to show the empty space.
They said I had to give them my land.
The vast majority of them are believed to be women.
If the lentils float, the woman is said to be a witch.
The men rarely attack alone.
Experts and activists say that the attacks often unfold as mob violence, involving torture in various forms.
Most recently, witch hunts have been documented in China, Tanzania, India, and other countries.
Even within India its very context-based and the reasons vary from region to region," she says.
“But always theres this need to overpower women and take what little they have.
Witch hunts often begin with disputes over propertylike in the case of Samta and Maahi.
Meanwhile, the very earth they’re fighting for is in jeopardy.
The Indian government is taking tribal land from the Adivasi communities to build hydroelectric dams.
Experts ofgender violencein India say older women are more vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft.
Most of the women accused of witchcraft are old widows, lonely ladies, Edamaruku says.
Widowed, divorced, or living alone, they are perceived as wild, free and threatening.
Some older women have inherited land from husbands or fathers that others seek to own.
Killing a woman makes the land attainable and calling a woman adakanmakes her murder acceptable.
They also use the law to protect women’s assets.
The women support one another and help survivors of violence navigate the complex legal system.
Another way that activists work to combat witch-hunting is through education.
Edamaruku lives in exile in Finland because of his work fighting superstition.
Thats why this work was appealing… for people here, the law is extremely relevant.
She lives in a one room apartment with a small kitchenette near the center of Dang.
She grew even more determined to use her training to fight for womens rights.
Her goal is to help improve government records.
They accused her of sorcery and stealing a statue from a temple and beat her to death.
The men who killed her were powerful men,” she says.
“They hold a lot of sway.
Peoples farms, homes, everything will be gone.
Its another terror being perpetrated against the women, she explains.
They are looking for people who saw the murder to compare eyewitness reports with information recorded by the police.
A key first step is getting the police to add the worddakanto theofficial report.
Dhoom talks with a neighbor while Sonavane sits on the stoop of the murdered womans home.
She looks out onto the small patch of land where the woman used to grow crops.
We try and gather facts and get justice, she says, biting her lip.
A map of Gujarat hanging on the wall outlines the dam expansion project.
It will inundate much of the land surrounding their office.
We have to keep pushing for a law that punishes men for defaming and murdering women, she says.
*Names have been changed
This story was reported with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
