‘Braid chopping’ cases on the rise
New Delhi, Aug. 4: Deserted roads, empty classrooms and shuttered doors behind which hide women and children too scared to step out. Kanganheri is a village spooked after three of its women reported that their braids had been chopped while they were sleeping.
The village on the edge of southwest Delhi — separated by not just a few kilometres but an entire world from the plush malls and much vaunted higher educational institutes of the national capital — is not alone in its panic. It started off with isolated reports of women’s hair, particularly braids, being chopped while they were sleeping or unconscious. But the numbers are increasing each day with some 30 odd cases being reported, mostly from villages in Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
Bogeyman, black magic or good ol’ thievery..the theories are many as the hysteria spreads, blurring the boundaries between superstition and crime in a largely rural belt.
In Kanganheri, like in other villages, the discourse centres around black magic and sorcery after three women became unconscious following a splitting headache and woke up with their braids on the floor.
Suspense and fear hang heavy in the air with most villagers not sending their kids to school and women confined to their homes.
Manoj, whose 55-yearold mother Sridevi, lost her hair, is convinced the police is trying to put the blame on a person while it is in fact “Bengali black magic” in play. — PTI