PHANTOM BARBERS
Reports of “phantom barbers” first emerged in June from the northern Indian state of Rajasthan. In subsequent weeks, close to 100 women in Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi reported that their hair had been chopped off while they were out cold. “I was in the kitchen and preparing dinner,” said Sunita Devi, 53, from the Gurgaon district of Haryana, recalling the events of 28 July. “Suddenly, I realised that someone was standing at the main gate of my house. I went there and found a thin man in a red and yellow outfit, standing there with a trident in his hand. I asked him to go away.” She returned inside and the man disappeared for a while but somehow entered her house. “There was a strong flash of light that left me unconscious,” she said. “An hour later, I found that my hair had been chopped off. I am unable to sleep or concentrate on anything. I had read about such incidents taking place in Rajasthan, but never thought it would happen to me.”
Sunita Devi lives in a closeknit community of traders and farmers. “I was alone on the ground floor of the house, and my daughter-in-law and grandson were upstairs when the attack happened at around 9:30pm,” she says. They saw and heard nothing. Munesh Devi, a neighbour, said that the narrow lane, which has around 20 houses, is usually buzzing between 9pm and 10pm. “People get together after dinner to just talk and relax. Friday was no different, but none of us saw any unknown person going in or coming out of Sunita’s house,” she said.
Just a few yards away, Asha Devi lost her hair in a similar attack the following day, but this time the attacker was reportedly a woman. Her father-in-law, Suraj Pal, said that following the incident, he sent her and other women of his family to a relative’s house in Uttar Pradesh for a few weeks. He was at home when Asha Devi went outside to complete a household chore at around 10pm. “I went outside to find her when she didn’t return for more than 30 minutes,” he said. “We found her unconscious in the bathroom. Her hair was chopped and thrown on the floor.” Asha came to after an hour and told him that a woman dressed in black and carrying several knives had attacked her. “She told me that everything happened in less than 10 seconds,” he said.
There were similar cases in rural areas of Rewari district – around 70km (43 miles) from Gurgaon. Reena Devi, 28, from Jonawasa village said she was attacked on 27 July. “I was doing my chores when I saw a large figure that resembled a cat. Then I felt somebody touching my shoulders, and that’s the last thing I remember. I know it sounds impossible, but that’s what I saw. Some people say I cut my hair, but why would I do that?” The same day, Reema Devi, 28, said her hair was chopped off while she was playing a game on her phone. “My husband and children were also in the room,” she said. “I felt a pull on my hair and when I looked back, my hair was on the floor.” [Reena Devi and Reema Devi, both 28 and both shorn on the same day? Have these reports been garbled?]
In the neighbouring village of Kharkharra, Sundar Devi, 60, had been bedridden since she was attacked and shorn on 29 July. “I was going to a neighbour’s house when somebody tapped my shoulder from behind,” she said. “When I looked back, there was
“There was a strong flash of light that left me unconscious”
nobody. That’s the last thing I remember.”
A cat also featured in another incident, reported by the
Times of India. Sapna, 20, from the village of Devi Lal Nagar, claimed she was asleep beside her children when she saw a cat enter her room in the early hours. The cat transformed into a woman who pounced on her and cut her locks.
“These are bizarre cases,” said Gurgaon police spokesperson Ravinder Kumar. “We have found no clues at crime scenes, medical tests of the victims show nothing abnormal. Only the victims say that they have seen or felt the presence of attackers. We will get to the bottom of these cases, but until then, I urge people to not believe in rumours.”
Indeed, rumours were not in short supply. In one village, an elderly man said that an organised gang was involved. Another said he believed that ‘tantriks’, or witch doctors, were to blame. Others talked about a
choti wali daayan (hair-snipping witch). Some feared that the hair could be used to cast spells. Others accused the victims of cutting their own hair to get attention. Rationalist Sanal Edamaruku insisted these cases were a classic example of “mass hysteria”, but Reena Devi disagreed. “I spent years growing my hair and it made me happy,” she said. “Now that it’s gone, you can’t even imagine my pain. It’s ridiculous to say that women are chopping off their own hair.”
In Agra city, Munni Devi said she went to sleep as usual, only to find her hair chopped off and her braid neatly placed near her pillow. Neither she nor her husband sleeping next to her had heard anything. At least 15 incidents of women’s braids being mysteriously chopped off were reported from the villages of the Mewat region in the second half of July.
Delhi Police received three reports of mysterious haircutting within 12 hours near Dwarka. The first incident took place around 10am when Munish was lying in bed. “Munish came back home after giving fodder to the cattle. She complained of a headache to her daughter-in-law. While she was lying in her bed, her grandchild noticed her hair lying on the ground. Everybody at home panicked because no one saw anyone cut her locks,” saidVimal Kumar from Chhawala. Then in the evening, Sridevi, in her mid-40s, came home after milking her cow, complaining of a headache. Her son spotted her hair on the ground. This took place a stone’s throw from the location of the morning snipping. “These incidents are bizarre as no one could see the person cut women’s hair locks,” said Kumar. At 10:30pm, a woman claimed when she shut the doors of her house, she found her braid lying on the floor, scaring her.
The Deputy Commissioner of Police, Surinder Kumar, said these incidents shouldn’t be looked at as witchcraft. “The team is checking the CCTVs installed in the area,” he said. “In fact, in one of the CCTV footages, three men could be seen. We have developed their photographs. It might be possible that they are targeting people so that they could easily rob them. They will be arrested soon.”
Some “miscreants” took advantage of the panic. Two brothers in Ambedkar Nagar confessed to cutting their sister’s hair while she was sleeping. On 2 August in Mutnai, a village near Agra, around 125 miles (200km) north of Delhi, Mala Devi (or Mandevi), a 60-year-old lowcaste woman, was lynched by a mob, which suspected her of being “a ghost who chopped off women’s braids” after she lost her way and ended up in an upper-caste neighbourhood. Police immediately launched a manhunt for two brothers, named as Manish and Song. Yet another woman nearly met the same fate at the hands of a mob in Khair, Aligarh, but was rescued by the police. Anand Kumar, a top official in northern Uttar Pradesh state, said village committees had been ordered to quash rumours about ghosts or witches on hair-cutting rampages. The fact that nearly all officials quoted in the news reports are called Kumar is without significance… probably.
Several academics and commentators described the events as a case of mass hysteria, comparing them to the reports of “monkey man” attacks in India in 2001 and 2002 [ FT148:8-9, 149:7, 163:7,
164:6-7]. Long-term readers will know that “phantom barbers” are a classic fortean phenomenon, exemplified by the pigtail snipping panic that swept China in 1876, described by Charles Fort in Wild Talents (1931). See “Hair today…” by Steve Moore [2003, FT177:42-46].