RAIPUR: A 54-year-old widow was paraded naked and then clubbed to death after being branded a witch at the instance of a village panchayat in Chhattisgarh, police said Monday.

Around 35 villagers took part in the gruesome incident in Parsatolo village, 122 km from here, in Rajnandgaon district Sunday, police said. Thirty-one people, including the village head, on charges of killing her.

Villagers held a meeting and on the instruction of the village panchayat, they branded Phoolwati Bai Gaur a witch, paraded her naked and then took her to a pond where she was clubbed to death, police said.

In a bid to hide the murderous act, the villagers took her body to a cemetery and burnt her body and then dumped her half-burnt remains in a nearby culvert. Police recovered the skeleton and raided the village.

The villagers blamed her for the unnatural deaths of some people.