Ghorachab village in Chhattisgarh’s Korba district is like any other rural habitation in India, except that it remained deserted for over a century, thanks to “mischievous ghosts”.
The picture postcard village, encircled by a perennial stream and rows of eucalyptus trees, can rival any tourist place in the country. But after twilight, as light fades, the locals, working in their paddy fields, on the outskirt of the village, leave the place in a hurry to escape the “wrath of the ghosts”.
“The entire village remains deserted round the year. All the houses had been locked since decades ago. Many locks have rusted. Some villagers, who preferred to use their abandoned houses as godowns, visit them only during day time to store grains,” local sarpanch Fekuram Trivedy said. “The village has been forsaken ever since a twister killed around 100 villagers in 1902. Since then, the village, having 300 pucca houses, is haunted by the dead and there were umpteen instances of locals being harmed by the spirits,” he added.
Stories make round the area that some villagers who once dared to spend the night in their houses turned insane and never recovered. All their houses caught fire. Since then, the villagers migrated to other places lock, stock and barrel, leaving their houses locked “for ever”.
“The revenue record of the government confirms existence of the village. But the village is deserted since a long ago. All the houses have been abandoned. The locals believe that the village is haunted by ghosts and never dare to enter it after darkness,” deputy collector, Korba district, Bhusan Dubey, told this newspaper. He said the government had made several attempts before to convince the villagers to come back to their houses, but without any success. The government records say that as many as four surveys have been conducted in the village between 1912- 1984, and all of them recorded the village as deserted.