UPDATED::Assam, India woman dismembered and beheaded by villagers for 'witchcraft' | Daily Mail Online

Correction::  According to BBC, the victim was Purni Orang with sixteen arrests being made. 

Police in India say they have held 16 people in connection with the killing of a woman accused of practising witchcraft.

Purni Orang, 63, was stripped naked and beheaded by villagers in Assam state, after she was blamed for illness in a tribal settlement in Sonitpur district.

Among those arrested were nine women.

India arrests 16 for beheading woman for 'witchcraft'

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A 63-year-old Indian woman has been dismembered and beheaded by machete-wielding villagers who accused her of practising witchcraft.

Seven people have been arrested over the death of PMoni Orang, a mother of five who was seized from her home in the northeastern state of Assam on Monday after local priests said she was casting spells.

'The attackers armed with machetes and other crude implements descended on the village and took away Moni Orang from her house and then brutally killed her,' senior police official Manabendra Dev Roy told AFP.

'She was decapitated and her limbs were chopped off.'

On Tuesday villagers stormed the local police station to protest against the arrests.

'Moni was a witch and had cast evil spells on her enemies,' said villager Kiran Teronpi on local television.

'There is no place for such sorcerers and so her killing is justified.'

Assam, India woman dismembered and beheaded by villagers for 'witchcraft' | Daily Mail Online