The authorities in Maharashtra’s Amravati district are grappling with an unusual crisis after nearly 600 tribal students left a government-run hostel at a residential school, claiming that a few girls there were possessed.
“The symptoms have nothing to do with anything supernatural. They appealed to people to view the incident from a scientific perspective rather than falling for blind beliefs, he added. The tribal residential school at Doma village of Chikhaldara taluka in the tribal-dominated Melghat region in northern Maharashtra, over 700 km from Mumbai, houses 810 boys and girls, said officials on Sunday.
Rumour soon spread that the girls were possessed, prompting about 600 students to leave the “haunted” hostel, run by the Tribal Development Department, over a span of a few days, they said. Some of the girls claimed to have heard the sound of anklets clanking, according to a hostel source. A senior official from the tribal department said that a team of health experts visited the Doma residential school. It could be a selective hysteria-like condition related to mental stress,” the official said. Several theories began floating after the unusual behaviour of some girls, according to a psychological report prepared by the authorities. Some women from the village also subsequently developed similar mental symptoms, it said. The third reason being cited is that an Adivasi youth died in a field near the school and his spirit became a ghost, the report said. Senior office-bearers from Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti, which works towards eradication of blind faith, also met the students and counselled them, said the official.
