Sorcerer Called In To Treat Snakebite Patient In Dhenkanal Hosp

Dhenkanal: Superstition continues to raise its ugly head time and again in the state. Family members of a victim of snakebite reportedly called a sorcerer to Kamakhyanagar hospital in Dhenkanal district to treat him, on Tuesday.

According to the sources, Sanjay Das of Baisinga in the district was admitted to the hospital after being bitten by a venomous snake.

Even as the doctors were treating him at the hospital, his family members called in a sorcerer from the nearby village.

The sorcerer chanted mantras and conducted other rituals inside the hospital premises to cure him.

By then, the doctors had administered injection and given him medicines and his condition was stable. Blinded by superstition, his family members, however, consulted the sorcerer.

Unluckily for Sanjay, he survived the snakebite and was later discharged from the hospital.

A similar incident was reported from Balasore district in the first week of August. Family members of a man, who had succumbed to snakebite, approached a sorcerer and asked him to revive the dead by using supernatural powers.

According to the sources, Siddheswar Jena of Mahisamunda village was bitten by a snake and was declared ‘brought dead’ at the hospital in Jaleswar. His relatives called up a sorcerer in Baripada and pleaded him to resurrect Jena.

They also performed rituals with a branch of Neem tree on the hospital bed. Simultaneously, they held the phone near Jena’s ears as the sorcerer recited mantras to bring him back to life.