Chaibasa, February 18 A 32-year-old woman and her baby were allegedly set on fire in the West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand after she was branded a witch, police said on Wednesday.
The incident occurred at a village in the Kumardungi police station area late on Tuesday, and four people have been arrested, they said.
The woman's husband was also injured in the attack, but he managed to escape. He spent the night at a relative's place and reached the police station on Wednesday morning.
In his complaint, he alleged that he woke up in the middle of the night after hearing that some people were calling him and his wife.
When he went out, he saw that around a dozen people had gathered, accusing his wife of practicing witchcraft. Amid the commotion, the mob poured kerosene on his wife, who had their one-year-old baby in her arms, and set them on fire, according to the complaint.
They died on the spot, police said.
"After the husband lodged the police complaint, he was admitted to the government hospital in Kumardungi. We have arrested four men named in the complaint. We are trying to identify the women who also took part in the crime, relying merely on superstition," Jagannathpur SDPO Raphael Murmu told