A 45-year-old woman’s body, chopped into six pieces, was found buried on the banks of a river in Pakur district of Jharkhand, some 330km north-east of state’s capital Ranchi, on Monday afternoon.

The body of Sona Marandi, a resident of Bhattikunder village, has been identified by her son Manoj Hansda.

According to a report, the body of the woman has been cut into six pieces, two legs, two hands, torso and head and buried in the Bansloi river stretch near the Pachuwada Ranga tola of Pakur district.

Villagers first noticed two legs of the woman on Saturday evening near the river and informed the local police on Sunday morning. The police reached the spot and started searching in the nearby vicinity of the river for other parts of the body, but could not get any breakthrough. On Monday late afternoon, while digging they found other parts of the body and sent them for post mortem at Pakur Sadar Hospital.

Pakur SP, Manilal Mandal confirmed that the son of the deceased woman, Manoj Hansda has alleged that few persons had threatened her mother of dire consequences for practicing witchcraft and a case has been lodged against the named eight persons on Tuesday morning.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in Jharkhand on the pretext of practising black magic, a majority of them women, ever since the new state came into being in 2000.

Sona was missing since February 24 and after failing to trace her, his son had lodged a missing case on March 3.

“They had threatened the woman for practicing witchcraft and on complaint of the son we have registered a case against eight persons of the same village all of whom are absconding. We are trying to trace and arrest them and only then we will know the exact motive behind branding her as a witch by the culprits,” Mandal said.