TV serials cast spell with 'magic'

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">HYDERABAD: Television serials on <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">banamati</span>, the local variety of black magic rumoured to be practised in Telangana, are giving the state government nightmares.<br />Given the recent rash of incidents of alleged sorcerers being burnt at the stake, it thinks that TV, once fancied as a medium of development, has become a vehicle for superstition.<br />Such serials, scripted, directed and broadcast from Hyderabad, are immensely popular in the villages of Telangana.Some serials such as Manoyagnam have a mass audience.<br />This year, five persons have been killed in Ranga Reddy district after being labelled sorcerers, according to superintendent of police M V Ramachandra Raju, most of them tied to trees and burnt alive. These incidents happened in Balijapalli, Nagasanapalli, Chandanvalli and Nanderkhanpet villages of the district.<br />Rashmi Samaram, an activist with the Atheist Centre, an NGO which has fought black magic and superstition in the state, says television has played a significant role in keeping superstition alive in Telangana villages.<br />According to Samaram, the main reason for the prevalence of banamati in Telangana villages is illiteracy. “Sorcery and black magic have these villages in a vice-like grip. Adding to the vicious cycle is a new belief: that anything screened on TV is true. So the TV, especially the serials screened on Telugu channels, have caused more harm than good,� she says.<br />Hyderabad additional commissioner of police (traffic) D T Naik was inspector general of police, Warangal range, when five persons were burnt alive in 2000 at Timmapur in Warangal district.<br />According to him, murders of suspected sorcerers happen mostly where there has been some misfortune in a village.<br />“If cattle die, crops withers or relative falls ill, villagers connect it with an earlier disease that someone had and identify him as the carrier of the ‘curse’,� he says. People are dependent upon quacks who tend to be part-time magicians. <br />“In order to rid the village of a curse, people pay the quack money to identify the ‘sorcerers,� says Naik. At times politicians and farmers who have feuds to settle also get names ‘fixed.’<br />“The problem in catching the murderers is that in most cases, most villagers would have abetted the crime. It becomes difficult to separate the conspirators from the murderers,� Naik says.<br />The villagers tend to close ranks after burning a suspected sorcerer. Says Samaram, “The villagers believe they did nothing wrong. They think they did a good deed.� </div> </div>