In 2008, director Rajesh Touchriver was interviewing a police officer in Odisha when he heard about a witch-hunting case. Until then, he assumed what many do — that it’s a thing of the past. “I overheard a phone conversation where the officer was instructing local officers to take action in a reported case. I was shocked,” recalls the filmmaker. While it haunted him for years, he heard about another similar case right after the pandemic. The frequency of such cases led him to conceptualise his upcoming release, Dahini — The Witch.

Inspired by real incidents, the Tannishta Chatterjee and JD Chakravarthy-starrer exposes how superstition and vested interests lead to mob violence against women in several parts of the country. “The witch-hunt I am touching upon in this film is practised in more than eight states in our country. Mostly seen in rural communities, it is manifested as mob lynching and social exclusion,” he explains.