Indian villagers burn witches

A crowd of up to two-hundred villagers in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has burnt to death five people, after accusing them of witchcraft.

Police say the five -- four women and a man -- were dragged from their homes and beaten, before being tied to a tree, doused with kerosene and burnt alive.

The villagers believed they had used sorcery to cause the death of several local people.

The police said almost all the fifteen hundred inhabitants of the village had since fled.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service