Eight persons were arrested on Friday for the gruesome killing of five members of a family on the intervening night of February 23 and 24 in Buruhatu Amtola in Kamdara block of tribal dominated Gumla district with police claiming that the murders were linked to black magic that was allegedly being practised by two of the victims.

Those killed were identified as Nikudin Toppo (60), wife Josphina Toppo (55), their son Vincent (35), daughter-in-law Shivani (30) and the elderly couple’s grandson Balwina. Vincent, Shivani and Balwina were found hacked to death in one room while Nikudin was found dead on the veranda of their kutcha house. Josphina lay dead on the bed inside another room.

Family members of the victim. Manob Chowdhary

Gumla SP H.P.Janardhan said, “This incident is linked with a witch-hunt as we found during our investigations that the villagers believed that the elderly couple (Nikudin and Josphina) of the family was into black magic. Villagers blamed the family for several deaths in the recent months.”

The SP said the police took up the investigations as a challenge ever since the bodies were recovered on Wednesday. The police formed a 10-member special investigation team (SIT) under Basia SDPO Deepak Kumar, which cracked the case within two days of the incident.

Family members of the victim. Manob Chowdhary

"During the probe, we had learnt that on February 23, villagers had convened a meeting at a local football ground to discuss ways to eliminate the family. On the same night, eight persons including a few women, who had attended the meeting, got drunk and decided to kill the elderly couple. They barged into their house with traditional weapons and killed them. Later on, they chose to kill three others of the family—a minor boy and his young parents—fearing that they would tell police,” Sp Janardhan said.

The SP added that all those arrested had confessed to the crime during interrogation. Police, he added, had also recovered the blood stained weapons that were used in the crime.

Those arrested have been identified as Sunil Topno (30), Soma Topno (25), Salim Topno (25), Firangi Topno (45), Philip Topno (55), Amrit Topno (30), Sawan Topno (34) and Daniel Topno (40).