The incident came to light only after Sanimaya Thing and her family from Simaudamar, Kyaneshwor-9 managed to escape from the clutches of their tormentors and reach the police station to file a complaint on Wednesday.

Sanimaya, including her husband Sanuman and sister Sanjimaya, aunt Lilamaya Thing and mother Buddhimaya Syangtan were thrashed mercilessly by a group of villagers and force-fed animal and human excreta in front a huge crowd of onlookers on February 4. The However, the most bizarre part of the unfortunate incident is that the victim’s own relatives had subjected them to such treatment.

In her statement to the police, victim Sanimaya has stated that more than a dozen villagers, including Lobhar, Dhansingh, Nar Bahadur Thing, Wangsila and Darja Thing and their wives had beaten them and forced them to eat pig and human excreta on the charge of practicing witchcraft. Saying that their tormentors had threatened to kill them if they went to the police and held them hostage for several days following the incident last week, Sanimaya recounted that the villagers including some of their own relatives had accused her of causing harm to them by the spell of witchcraft. She was then asked to call out her family members to prove her innocence, only to subject all of them to such inhumane treatment.

“Our own relatives tortured us by forcefully feeding us pig and human excreta and subjecting us to severe physical and mental abuse,” complained Sanimaya with tears running down her cheeks.

The villagers had accused Sanimaya of being responsible for the death of Nar Bahadur Thing’s parents. While Nar Bahadur’s mother had died from natural causes four years ago, his father had died this year. In the police complaint, the victim has also said that she was wrongfully accused of causing Dhansingh to become sick under the spell of witchcraft.  

Sanimaya also said that her tormentors had forced her to accept that she was a witch. Meanwhile, Sanuman Thing, Sanimaya’s husband, said that they had been brought to the district headquarters by police in order to avoid any unpleasant incident as all of the accused , who are currently on the run, might try to harm them if they remained in the village.