Mizo youth under Satanic spell

In the dark of the night, a mixed group of teenage boys and girls huddle together in a circle inside a secluded cemetery, holding hands and chanting invocations to the Satan.

In the centre of the huddle is placed the skull of a monkey or a dog with the inscription 'Natas Si Dog' which in reverse reads 'God Is Satan'.

The geometric progression in popularity of devil worship had, of course, set alarm bells ringing causing concern among confused parents and teachers, unable to make out whether their young ones were indulging in drug abuse or worse.

The popular belief here is that some youth took to Satanic worship after watching a film called 'The Craft' in television where the worshippers were 'blessed' with supernatural powers.

Performers of the 'Black Mass' soon fall into a trance and one after another slash their wrists in a ritual offering of blood to the biblical 'Fallen Angel'.

A seven-paged report earlier prepared by a four-member Aizawl Theological College faculty said that illicit, even unnatural sex, incest and intake of psychotropic drugs were mandatory during the 'Satanic Rituals'.

The youthful indulgence in witchcraft in the deeply religious Mizo society then confounded the powerful Presbyterian Church which authorised the research by the Aizawl Theological College Faculty.

The report, submitted to the Aizawl district Superintendent of Police by Lalliansawta, a Church elder working in the Presbyterian Synod office, quoted some of the boys and girls indulging in the worship as saying that, "we sat silently during devotional meetings in our home and worshipped Lucifer."

Lalliansawta, while submitting the report to the SP in 2002, requested the police to look into the devil worship as it was a 'social menace' and could lead to a plethora of social evils'.

That was how it began a few years back and no reports of violations of the laws or overt disruption of the society were heard then.

Boys and girls interviewed by the four Theologists were told that they sought the Satan's powers to influence others, be it to earn large sums of money, to achieve success in school examinations, or merely to instill fear and awe and earn respect among their peers and elders.

The irony was that these young people belonged to Christian families who regularly went to the Church and have devotional meetings in their residents, the report added.

The worship took an ugly turn in the past six months with reports of the worshippers defiling the church and damaging church properties.

While the church refused to involve the police in some cases, police investigated some of them and young people, mainly drug abusers, were arrested and charged with criminal cases.

The first reported incident of blasphemous acts of suspected Satanic devotees was at Kawnpui village in Kolasib district in the Mizoram-Assam border in 2006.

Lalbiakthanga Khiangte, Kolasib district SP, told reporters that a church at Kawnpui Hmar Veng was defiled at night by suspected devil worshippers in the church.

The Kawnpui incident was followed by a similar incident at another Presbyterian Church of Diakkawn locality in Kolasib town.

Another bizarre incident occurred inside a United Pentecostal Church (UPC) at Zemabawk area near here during early December where five persons were found to be shooting a 'Satanic film'.

Bureau Report