posted April 06, 2008 11:08 PM         

Police arrested four people on Sunday for violating the Jharkhand Anti-Witchcraft Act, 2001 and Prevention of Atrocities on SC/ST Act after they tortured Rashmi Devi (60) and Samri Devi (65) in Manaydih village, 15 km from Dhanbad. Samri Devi is a sweeper in a local branch of a nationalised bank.

"It was because of superstition. The villagers, including the son of one of the victims, believed the elderly women were practising witchcraft," said Vinod Kumar, an officer at Barwaadda police station.

The trouble started after the four-year-old son of Koleshwar Das, one of the villagers, died two days ago. The family of Das suspected it was because of the "witchcraft" of the two elderly women.

The villagers caught the women on Saturday forced them to eat human excreta. They alleged that the women were a "curse on the village" and chicken pox had spread in the area because of them.

posted April 07, 2008 05:16 AM         

Mannu, that story is so sad.

posted April 07, 2008 07:52 AM         

i was shoked to read this story and i found it easier to laugh at it because it was too degrading and just plainly infuriating. it was either humor or anger. and what's the point of anger here?

i too have a pluto moon conjunction and sometimes my emotions are really too powerful to be held in check. i'm sure you understand me. obviously if i had been there at the time, i can assure you i wouldn't have wanted to laugh about it. i could have avoided to post anything maybe, but then i'm silencing my emotions, which i don't recommend to anyone so why would i do it to myself?

i take the criticism though, i just wanted to explain myself to you because it's you.
sorry if I *choose the verb* you. i'm a shoking, loud, eccentric person, and the worst thing is i like it. i'm working on it.

the good thing is i know that you get me because we react the same way. we react to an emotional stimulus with a cold reasoning because we are afraid not to control the flow of emotions created according to what we think is appropriate with regard to morals, to others, to my mother, to everyone else but to ourself, keeping the melted lava ready to explode whenever we won't hold control over it anymore... result we end up with a moon conjunct pluto in libra. why? so i wont upset people? so why not everyone has a moon in libra? may be they don't try to hold it in for the sake of others and for the sake of harmony, while inside it's burning me to hell. they can adapt to me too. it must be written somewhere in my karma. (leo north node). and people are free to choose their acquaintances, and they do. those who are put off by my style will naturally move away. there's only a libra moon to think that people will try to become your friend just for the beauty of it. it's actually a good thing that they move away because i'm not trying ANYMORE to get the approval of others. LET SOME BE PUT OFF. I DON'T HOLD GRUDGES AT ALL, I JUST VALUE MYSELF NOW, AND BY MY OWN STANDARD, NOT BY THE POPULARITY ONE. i don't want to please anyone or prove that i "got it".

they think what they want. well in fact that's what they've always been doing. i was the one accomodating to their beliefs, views, standards. so if i can do it, they can to. and if they can't, then what can i do about it? trying to please them? of course...to a certain extent, and certainly not at the expenses of the expression of my emotions.

i could talk to you forever. there's so much that i think we've got in common. and i'm not fooled, i bet that your reaction was twofold:
first: a kind of projection, of subconscious stuff(partly coming from your deep spiritual values, partly from your unconscious fear of being unappreciated)
second: an actual plutonian emotion difficult to control if you don't want to be affected for the rest of the day.

but look:
i don't want you to take this message as anything else than a friendly reply. why? after all even if you got really upset by it, would it be the end of our correspondence?

if yes, then our over-concern with the rights of others overwhelms us, and its plutonian effects are damaging our relationship skills. that's ironic for a moon in libra.