Witch hunts are still occurring in Nepal in the twenty-first century, and the persecution of marginalised individuals of the community, especially women, still persists.
Although Nepal does not have a recorded history of systematic witch-hunts, belief in the supernatural, magic, and humans capable of exploiting both to do good or harm is pervasive.
[1][2] In many instances, witch-hunts are simply tribal scapegoating measures carried out to serve ulterior motives, such as getting revenge or winning property disputes.
[5][6] The perpetrators are usually neighbours or residents of the same village, and occasionally family or close relatives, usually armed with accusations from shamans or witch-doctors (tantrics).
[5][6] Non-murderous witch-hunts usually include beating and feeding of excrement,[6] as it is believed that witches must follow a strict dietary regimen of purity to retain their magical powers.
Witchcraft may be blamed in Nepali societies for material loss, sickness of cattle, and other problems, in addition to mental and physical illnesses in humans.
Facial hair or baldness in women, stooped posture, cantankerousness, garrulousness, red or yellow eyes, infertility, and talking to oneself are some of the characteristics that can get a person suspected or accused of witchcraft.
[citation needed] Mob violence (including killing) based on accusations of witchcraft, sometimes sanctioned by a committee of village elders, is prevalent.
[9] The accused may be paraded naked,[9] with their faces blackened with soot or battery powder, and a garland of shoes around their neck,[10] made to feed on excrement,[9] shaved, beaten,[9] tortured, and banished from the village.
[9] Witch-doctors play a key role in providing an authoritative accusation against the targeted victim in order to rouse the whole community to participate in the violence.
[citation needed] Television programs, street, and stage plays have been created and performed by various artists and social organisations to spread awareness about the issue.
Thirty-year-old Jug Chaudhary of Kailali District in far western Terai was dragged from her home, beaten up in public, force-fed human excrement and paraded naked by members of her community including her relatives, in November 2009.
According to Nepali Times which reported the incident, police declined to register a complaint, suggesting it was a personal matter to be resolved within the community.
[18] According to a report by the Telegraph published on 15 February 2010, Kalli Bishwokarma, a 47-year old Dalit woman, was abducted by a group of 35 people from her own village and held for two days in a cowshed without food or water, and tortured.
She confessed to making a schoolteacher in her village sick using witchcraft, when the mob proceeded to peel her skin off after she had held off torture for two days.
[24] Sixty-year-old Rajkumari Rana was assaulted and tortured in April 2013 in Kailali District,[25][17] in an act of vigilante justice sanctioned by the village council.
On 9 December 2016, she was intercepted on her way back from a fair, by Hira Lama and his mother Kaili Tamang, and tied to a basketball pole with a rope.
According to Pariyar's second son who was nine years old at the time and witnessed the whole event, Nirmaya Tamang, the shopkeeper who sold Lama the rope was also involved in the assault.
6,000, along with an apology and a hundred sit-ups,[30] by lodging a complaint to the police that she had hurt shopkeeper Tamang's buffalo, a case that had been settled just a day before she was found dead.
[33] According to the NGO Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), the police tried to hush up the incident as it involved one of their own but were forced to act through external pressures.
[35] Eighteen-year-old Radha Chaudhary of Ghodaghodi was dragged from her home[36] and tortured for six hours by a group led by a shaman, in front of hundreds of cheering onlookers, on 8 March 2018, International Women's Day.
The police reportedly declined to register the complaint by the victim's family, instead advising them to seek community settlement and reconciliation, under pressure from the mayor and ward chair.
[39] Following his arrest, the shaman Bhole Baba reportedly apologised for breaking the law, affirming that he would stop "curing" the ill but would stay a "believer".
[43] Thirty-year-old Gita Devi Ram of Rautahat District in southern Nepal was beaten by members of her own family on the night of 22 May 2018 when a shaman accused her of keeping her sister-in-law's son sick.
The parents and brothers of the sick boy, who had failed to recover from his illness after a year, assaulted his aunt, beating her indiscriminately on the night of 22 May.
They were carrying out instructions from their father, who suspected her of witchcraft when she was seen performing rituals in a nearby temple in an attempt to cure another sick woman.
[47] The main perpetrator, Dhan Bahadur Magar, a Nepal Army officer on leave, had brought in three shamans to investigate his ailment, after he had started feeling chest pain.
[46] A thirty-five-year-old woman was force-fed human feces by a group of five or six women in Birta village of Bangaha Municipality-4, Mahottari District, on 18 August 2019.