Five beheaded in India's Assam for "witchcraft"

A group of villagers beheaded five people including a man, his wife and teenage daughter in India's remote northeast region, accusing them of practising witchcraft, police said on Tuesday.

The villagers stormed the house of the 55-year-old man in Assam state's Kokrajhar district, about 240 km (150 miles) west of the state capital of Dispur, just as the family finished dinner on Monday, a police officer said.

Around the same time, another group raided the house of a couple in a nearby village and hacked them to death. The area is dominated by Bodos, one of dozens of tribal groups in the restive northeast.

Nearly a dozen people have been killed in the area in the past week by villagers who accused the victims of practising witchcraft after many people fell ill due to an undiagnosed disease, the police officer said.

"Illiteracy is the main cause of such superstitious beliefs. At the same time, some people with vested interests also take advantage of this to settle personal rivalries," the officer said.