A series of bizarre incidents, where women’s braids are mysteriously being cut off, have been reported from several parts of north India over the last few weeks, with the latest being an incident at Greater Noida in UP on 3 August.
“I was sleeping, I got up at 3 am to pee. When I came back I saw my hair on the bed. I woke my husband up and told him what had happened, I got really scared. I asked him to check on the girls as well. Their hair had also been cut. Two of my daughters had their hair open and their hair was cut, my younger daughter had a ponytail which was also cut”, said a woman from Delhi’s Mayapuri area, one of the several women who have had similar claims.
The bizarre incidents have left the villagers in panic mode. Most women claimed to have fallen unconscious when their braids were chopped, leading the villagers to blame godmen, ghosts, witches and "cat-like" creatures.
The series of braid-chopping incidents took a serious turn after a Dalit woman was beaten to death by two men in a UP village after being accused of being involved in the incidents.
The police say this is the work of a few unsocial elements. “What happened in Agra is very unfortunate. But the incident proves that there is no gang. An old woman got up in the middle of the night to pee and people mistook her for a witch who does black magic and they hit her. Later it was discovered that the woman was from the village. There is no gang involved in this, just some unsocial elements that are behind this,” Anand Kumar, ADG law, Lucknow was quoted as saying.
The case has drawn parallels to the ‘Monkey man’ case of 2001, where a number of crimes were blamed on a ‘black monkey’, resulting in the spread of hysteria.
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