Police in Gujarat’s Devbhumi Dwarka district arrested five men for allegedly torturing a 25-year-old woman to death, The Indian Express reported on Thursday. The accused persons assaulted the woman by claiming that they were exorcising an evil spirit.
The woman has been identified as Ramila Solanki.
The First Information Report filed in the matter stated that that she started trembling and shouting at a temple of local deity Meldi in Okhamadhi village at around 4.30 am on Wednesday.
“Saying she was possessed by some goddess, the accused family members started beating her up by grabbing her hair in an attempt to exorcise the spirit, leading to her death,” Devbhumi Dwarka Superintendent of Police Sunil Joshi said.
Dwarka police station in-charge Pravin Gadhvi said that priests of the temple claimed that the woman had be lashed by a hot chain. She was also assaulted with burning logs of wood, Gadhvi added.
The five arrested men including three community priests and the brother-in-law of the woman, according to the Hindustan Times.
The National Commission for Woman has taken suo moto cognisance of the incident and issued a notice to the police to submit a report on the incident, reported The Times of India.
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