Patna: Policemen at a ‘haunted’ Jharkhand police station have been offering prayers to get deliverance from “wandering spirits”.
Such is the fear of ghosts at the Jugsalai police station, that cops leave the place by 11pm each night to escape the ire of the supernatural powers, witnesses say.
The police station is located in Jamshedpur town of Jharkhand state, some 445km south of Patna.
Authorities said cops have been routinely organising prayers at the police station every month without fail and making offerings to ‘invisible spirits’ to ward off the ‘ghosts’ who have spooked them at the police station.
“Nothing appears fine here. We feel terrified all the time due to sudden fear,” sub-inspector S Baske told local media on Friday. According to him, they have been offering prayers every month to propitiate the ‘ghosts’.
Cops posted with at the police station report hearing strange sounds from inside the station once night falls and its frequency increases shortly past midnight.
“No one likes to stay at the police station at night and it is totally deserted by 11pm every day,” a policeman revealed.
According to him, the telephone lines also routinely go out of order despite their best efforts. “We have been repairing the phone lines on a daily basis, but strangely they stop working by evening. This is an everyday problem,” he said.
According to a policeman, the place where the ‘haunted’ police station has come up was earlier being used as a “cremation ground” by local villagers. “Apparently, that’s the reason why our police station is in the grip of ghosts,” he explained.
This is however not the only ‘haunted’ place in Jharkhand. Begunkodar railway station, which falls between Jhalda and Kotshila railway stations under the Ranchi rail division in eastern India too was earlier shut down in 1967 after being described as a “haunted place”.
The said railway station, as per media reports, was closed shortly after a railway officer died when he reportedly saw “a ghost dressed in white clothes walking on the tracks in the dead of night”.
Subsequently, no railway officials wanted to be posted at this station, leading it to being shut down.
Today, however, the ‘ghost’ railway station is buzzing with activity and has turned into a tourist destination.