The agony of watching your own grave being dug
A year after security forces and villagers invaded Shakahola and drove the sect out, Crime Scene 128, other than the numbers written in blue on a tree branch, looks like any other ordinary thicket with dry clearings interspersed with thorn shrubs and sturdy trees. Scattered all over the ground, and some still tied to branches, are colourful strips of cloth. The area is bordered by a thorn fence, now much damaged and overgrown with the passage of time.
This, early responders said, was a fasting bay. Fearing discovery and rescue by security teams, who were circling the place and showing every sign of planning to move in, sect members fled their homes for isolated areas such as this, stripped naked and lay in the sun in an attempt to hasten their own demise. Disobedient older children, especially those who tried to flee but were too big to be locked up with the small children, were tied to trees in a forced fast, the responders said.
There is a graveyard just over the thorn fence. So it is possible that as they suffered in the sun, the young people could see graves being dug.