The decade of nineties had almost ended. The country was feeling the rapid modern changes. In this period of change, the form of fear was changing. People in villages who once used to be scared of bandits, robbers and ghosts…now they were filled with fear of rumours like ‘Munhnochwa’ and ‘Lakadsunghwa’.
People had stopped sleeping on their roofs during the scorching nights of June. There was a complete ban on children going out during the day. Every day, someone or the other would tell us that in a certain village, a snake had attacked someone or a wood-snake had taken away someone’s child in the afternoon.
when the mouth-nose came
It was the year 2002. In the villages of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, people would be confined to their homes by evening. They were afraid that if they went out alone at night, the mouth-scratcher would attack them. News related to this used to appear in newspapers almost every day. But no one had the right answer as to who this night hunter was.
A human, a machine or an alien… whoever came to mind, would stand among the people and give his own definition of a mouth-biter. But most people claimed that it is a flying thing, inside which red, yellow and green lights glow and it scratches the face in the dark and runs away.
Village after village would spend their nights in terror of Munhnochwa. In many villages, teams would be formed which would stay awake at night and roam around the village looking for Munhnochwa. If by mistake, an unknown person was found in the village, he would be searched. This was because, there was also a rumour that some outsiders were operating Munhnochwa.
However, only rumours of Munhnochwa’s attacks were heard. Till date, no person has been found who has claimed that Munhnochwa has attacked him. But the terror of Munhnochwa and the rumours related to it were so strong that many comics were also written on it later.
Fear of hyenas and ban on children going out
The fear of Lakadsunghwa started in the 90s. Especially in the villages of Bihar and Purvanchal, the fear was so much that children were locked in their homes by noon. There was a complete ban on them going out alone. Especially in the months of May and June, the terror of Lakadsunghwa was very high.
Actually, in UP, Bihar, it was said about Lakadsunghwa that this is a gang that used to take children with them by making them smell wood. Some people said that Lakadsunghwa used to make the children unconscious and take them away. Whereas, some people claimed that the children who were made to smell wood by Lakadsunghwa would come under his control and would follow him.
Rumor and death of Lakadsunghwa
The terror of Lakadsunghwa was so much that the villagers looked at every outsider with suspicion. In 1991, in Aurangabad’s Obra village in Bihar, some villagers beat a sadhu to death on suspicion of being a Lakadsunghwa.
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