GUWAHATI: President Ram Nath has given assent to the Assam Witch Hunting ( Prohibition , Prevention and Protection) Bill, 2015, making it a law to fight the menace of this superstitious practice that claimed several lives and ostracized many in the last decade.The President gave his assent to the Bill, which imposes maximum imprisonment up to seven years and maximum fine up to Rs 5,00,000 for branding someone as witch, on June 13 this year. The Assam assembly passed the bill unanimously in 2015."Now that the bill has become the law, it will add more teeth to our enforcement agencies to fight the evil of superstition of witch hunting in an effective way," principle secretary of home department, LS Changsan told TOI. She said the government had issued a gazette notification on June 29.Changsan said that the law has strict penal provisions including imposition of fines on the community if they were found guilty of indulging in the crime of witch hunting. She said awareness will be carried out among the communities about the law in rooting out the superstitious practice from society.Birubala Rabha, herself a survivor of witch-hunting and now spearheads the campaign "Mission Birubala" said that the law and brought hope in fighting the menace of witch-hunting which has become a bane for lives in the countryside."I cannot be more happy at the bill becoming a law. For all those years in the past, the enforcement agencies had to deal with the crime of witch-hunting without a specific law for it. As a result there was no deterrent for the particular crime of witch-hunting. Now this vacuum has been filled up," Birubala said.All India People's Science Network joint secretary, Isfaqur Rahman said that while the law will help in curbing the witch-hunting, there is also the need to make the legislator more broad-based by covering all other different sorts of is superstitious practices including quackery."We welcome that the bill has been made into a law. But at the same time we hope that in subsequent time, the law will be amended to include other superstitious practices which are equally posing threat to our society," Rahman said.Social activists involved in anti-witch-hunting campaign, estimated since 2002, at least 150 people killed in the state so far.Over 70 people sustained injuries, while many subjected to humiliations or leading an ostracized life.On October 2014 Debojani Bora, a national-level athlete who represented the state at various national events, was also tortured by a group of villagers and a priest after branding her as witch at Dokmoka area of Karbi Anglong district In 2015, the year the bill was passed, a 60-year old Adivasi woman was dragged out of her house and beheaded by a mob at Bhimajuli area of Sonitpur after charging her of practicing witchcraft.A 40-year-old man was lynched by six people, including two women, inside a Jorhat tea garden in 2017 on charges of witchcraft.

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