Feline Spirits
DOLAGOBIND, ORISSA -- In a bizarre
incident, a girl's school here has been closed after its students started
behaving abnormally.
Teachers claim that at least a dozen girls have taken ill under mysterious
circumstances in the past two weeks, all fainting without a cause, only to wake
up and start behaving like cats.
Dolagobind, a remote hamlet in Orissa, has since been affected by so many
incidents that necromancers have been called in to remove these so called evil
spirits.
According to the teachers, all the affected girls are aged between eight to
twelve. They were seen clawing their own faces and shrieking like felines. Some
even fainted, leaving the management with no option but to shut the school.
"First three girls fell down when they came to school. We thought they hadn't
had food so we gave them something to eat but after that also they were not
normal and behaved strangely," said school headmistress Manjubala Pande.
"Next day again some six-seven girls started crying, fell down on the floor
making sounds like that of a cat. We immediately informed others in the village
but after the faintings and behaviour repeated, we were forced to shut the
school," he added.
The children have been shifted to
an ashram or hermitage run by a local sage where they are being made to recite
Vedic mantras and fire rituals are being performed to drive the spirits away.
Parents say the girls have shown some improvement but are unable to recall
exactly what went wrong with them.