BJP MLA moves Bill against ‘supernatural’ evil practices

JALANDHAR: Phagwara BJP MLA Som Parkash has moved a private member's bill on Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and Other Inhuman, Evil Practices and Black Magic in the current assembly session. The bill, which makes promotion and practice of superstitious activities cognizable and non-bailable offence, is scheduled to come up for discussion on Thursday.
The Bill, which advocates imprisonment from six months to seven years for commission of any offence described in the Schedule appended to the Bill, prohibits use of assault or other torturing methods being used by Tantriks for exorcising evil spirits and seeks provisions to make them cognizable and non-bailable offences.Apart from human sacrifice it has enlisted several other superstitious acts which would become punishable offences under the proposed law.
The Schedule appended with the Bill includes offences such as assaulting a tied person, to make a person drink footwear soaked water, hanging a person, forcible plucking of hair, causing bodily harm by forcibly touching hot objects, forcing a person to perform a sexual act in the open, forcing urine or human excreta in someone’s mouth, endangering lives by ‘display of miracles’, human sacrifice or ‘invoking spirits’.
The other offences mentioned in the bill also include prohibiting and preventing a person from taking medical treatment in case or dog, snake or scorpion bite and using mantra-tantra instead; claiming to perform surgery by fingers or claiming to change sex of a foetus, to claim to re- incarnation of another person or holy spirit, to perform sexual act with women unable to conceive.