Case file · High strangeness
Braid-chopping panic
From June to October 2017 more than a hundred women in Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Kashmir reported that their braids had been cut by an unseen attacker, often blamed on a witch or spirit.
2017 CE · 28.10, 77.00 · status: explained
The account
Some victims said they fainted first or saw a cat or a shadow. Mobs attacked suspected 'witches', including an elderly Dalit woman killed in Agra in August 2017.
The sceptical view
Police found self-cutting in several cases, and psychiatrists described mass psychogenic illness; no attacker was ever caught.