Mumbai, Oct 7

The Western Railway has banned illegal advertisements carrying messages of tantriks, black magicians and occultists inside the coaches of suburban trains, an official said Monday.

The ban has been enforced under the new Maharashtra Black Magic Act which seeks to eradicate human sacrifice, inhuman, evil and aghori practices.

The WR warned that the law stipulates a jail term of up to seven years if anybody is found pasting such advertisements in the suburban trains and thereby propagating superstitious practices and witchcraft.

The WR is continuing a drive to clean out coaches of such advertisements and has detected 156 cases of illegal pasting of stickers, the official said.

While six people have already been sent to jail, the WR also recovered penalties of Rs.152,300 for the offences.

The coaches of the trains on WR's suburban section between Churchgate-Dahanu, used by over four million commuters daily, are a favourite site for display advertisements and stickers of various products and services, including black magicians.

The issue of such evil practices suddenly came to the fore after the killing of prominent anti-superstition campaigner Narendra Dabholkar in Pune Aug 20. His killers are yet untraced and on the run.

By:IANS