Ranchi, Dec 5 (IANS): A woman was hacked to death in Jharkhand's Gumla district on suspicion of practising witchcraft, police said on Saturday.

Police said the crime occurred at Koenara village in Sadar police station area late Friday night. The body was recovered by police on Saturday and sent for post-mortem.

"On Friday afternoon, my mother Karmi Oraon had gone to wash clothes at the Manager dam situated at some distance from the village. She did not return home till late night. When we went to search for her, we found her blood-stained body," her son Veer Oraon told police.

He said that on November 26, one Chaitu Oraon had died of some disease but his father Chunda and other family members accused Veer's mother of witchcraft.

"Chunda and his sons Sawan and Feku killed my mother. They were seen near the dam before her death," Veer claimed.

In Jharkhand, more than 1,500 persons have been killed on the pretext they practised black magic, a majority of them women, ever since the new state came into being in 2000.