June 11, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 06, 1429

GUWAHATI: A mob lynched four members of a family in India’s northeast in the belief that the victims had practised witchcraft, police said on Tuesday.

The villagers in the northeastern state of Assam blamed the family for the death of a local youth after a brief illness.

“A large mob armed with crude weapons attacked a family, killing 65-year-old Lakhan Majhi, his wife, their son and daughter-in-law,” police official Saurav Saikia said, attributing the killings to superstition.

Such incidents are frequently reported from rural India where superstition is rife, police and social activists say.—AFP