Police intensify search to find witch who locked up women and child

KONNI: The police have intensified the investigation to find the witch and her help who locked up and tortured an eight-year-old girl and two women in a house in Pathanamthitta. Malayalapuzha Potheepadu native Shobhana and her help Unnikrishnan are the ones who went into hiding. The two had locked up Shubha wife of Pathanapuram native Anish John, her daughter Liya and Anish's mother Esther were locked in the house and threatened to kill them.

Earlier, Shobhana and Unnikrishnan, who were involved in witchcraft, were arrested by the police following the Elanthoor double human sacrifice case. After getting out on bail, they helped Anish John and Shubha to get bail. Anish and Shubha were arrested in a financial fraud case.

Anish and his family had been living in Vasanti Mutt, the house of Shobhana, for the last one month. A dispute broke out when Shobhana asked Anil to pay her the amount spent on bailing out Anish and Shubha. With this, Anish left the house. Following this, Shobhana and Unnikrishnan started torturing Anish's family members three by not giving them food and performing witchcraft rituals.

On Tuesday, Shobhana threatened to kill the three during a pooja that will be attended by people from outside. Later, the three shouted and sought help from the locals when Shobhana was not in the house. Neighbours soon went to the place where Kudumbashree's meeting took place and reported the information. Following this, Kudumbashree workers and DYFI workers broke open the door and freed them.