Strangled

By JAMES APA GUMUNO
INJURIES sustained in a gang rape was the cause of death of a girl whose passing nearly sparked another sorcery killing three days ago, a medical doctor at Mt Hagen Provincial Hospital confirmed yesterday.
The doctor, whose name is withheld for
his personal security, said a post mortem revealed that the cause of death was by strangulation.
Relatives of the eight-year-old girl tried to burn alive two women they had accused of killing her using sorcery on Monday.
Only quick intervention by the police saved the two women’s lives.
Police found them tied to two posts.
The doctor’s evidence corroborates with Mt Hagen police claims that the girl was repeatedly raped and died from injuries sustained in that ordeal.

The doctor said the postmortem showed there was enough evidence of rape and of her being physically strangled to death and not from sorcery.
The two elderly women from Kandep accused of sorcery were tortured on Monday at Kagamuga and would have been killed had the police not rescued them.
The doctor said the body of the boy whose death caused the violent burning death of Angelin Leneiata was not brought to the hospital for a post-mortem.
Police were expected to raid two settlements at Kagamuga and Wara Kum last night where they believe perpetrators of this incident, and one last Wednesday where a 20 year old mother was burnt to death in Mt Hagen.
Twenty people have so far been detained in relation to the two incidents.
Meanwhile, the dead wo­man’s husband, Leneiata Nogo, yesterday said he did not know who the killers of his wife were.
Nogo said when settlers residing with them at Warakum road junction started torturing his wife last Tuesday he fled with his daughter for fear of being attacked.
“On Wednesday morning, I didn’t see my wife burnt alive. I caught a morning bus and went to my village at Yakaliye in the Laiagam district, Enga,” he said.
He said he left his daughter with his eldest, Roslyn Nogo, from his first marriage whose mother also died, and came back to Mt Hagen.
 on Saturday.
 “I don’t know how she stays with Roslyn and her kids. I am concerned about her safety because of the fight.
“It’s also not safe to keep her in Mt Hagen. Her mother is gone and I will also be going back to work with Niugini Building Supplies,” he said.
Also yesterday Constitutional Law Reform Commission chairman, Benjamin Poponawa said current legislation relating to sorcery will be repealed.
He said some people were hiding behind sorcery to kill the innocent, weak, women, old and the  defenseless.
 “To remove the mentality of sorcery, the CLRC is proposing to have the Sorcery Act repealed in its entirety so that such cases of murder can only be dealt with under the criminal justice system,” he said.
“This will classify anyone who kills another person in retaliation for sorcery-related deaths as a murder suspect.”