Even in the 21st century, despite its scientific advancement and technological invention, a major part of India lives in the shadow of superstitions and persecutes women under the charges of witchcraft. Witchcraft and occult rituals have a deep-seated history of violence in all regional cultures across India yet women continue to be tortured and threatened by it. In a recent case hearing at the Allahabad High Court, a man along with his family was accused of murder as they subjected his wife to occult rituals to treat infertility. The victim was burnt 17 times by red hot pinch under the instruction of an occultist and due to such gruesome and repeated torture, she died.

The court denied bail to the accused while the bench of Justice Saurabh Shyamshrey observed, “The mindset of the applicant and co-accused who still believe in occultism to be a cure of female infertility even before ascertaining that it might be a case of male infertility, is of persons living in the stone age and not in 21st Century, where science as developed to such extent that even infertility can be medically cured, therefore, absolutely no bail at this stage.”
Root and causes of witchcraft rumours: Witch-hunt and occult practices

During the mediaeval period in Europe, any woman who showed signs of self-sufficiency or independence was accused of witchcraft. They were put through trials that subjected them to gruesome torture, such as drowning them in rivers, burning them at the stake, or stoning them to death. Even as the light of the Renaissance gripped European continents with modern scientific learnings and discoveries, women continued to be persecuted as witches and burnt at the stake even more than ever.