DADU, Dec 29: Sitting in groups or individually outside their makeshift tents near Pir Gaji Shah’s shrine, 65 kilometres from here, hundreds of women keep gyrating their heads in a trance until they fall unconscious.

The attendants rush to their help as soon as they fall and try to bring them back to consciousness.

The illiterate women whose majority come from Balochistan, Sindh and Seraiki belt of the Punjab and their male relatives believe that the dance at the eight-day Urs of Pir Gaji Shah rids them of evil spirits and genies who often manage to possess their bodies.

The Urs is held from Dec 20 to 28 each year.

People bring with them uncooked food and live near the shrine in makeshift tents braving all odds and difficulties. There is no electricity and the area is hit by shortage of drinking water.

The believers call Pir Gaji Shah ‘King of djinns’ where a Faqir plays flutes or other musical instruments ‘to compel women to dance with evil spirits and thus rid them of the ailment caused by them or tire off the genie that possessed their bodies.

“I feel relief pouring down my body after dancing with the djinn every year and remain normal for 12 months,” said Naseeban Brohi, one of participants of the annual Urs. Naseeban has come from Lasbella, Balochistan with her family. She believes that she has been possessed by a genie.

She said that she visited the shrine every year after her first visit some five years ago and felt immense relief after dancing here. She had made a vow with the djinn that she would come every year and pass eight days at the shrine, she said.

Naban Khoso, a Faqir, said that he was providing relief to haunted women through music in return for money for his services. When a woman was possessed her voice became hoarse and when a man was possessed he would talk in a woman’s voice, he said.

Another Faqir, Roshan Ali, said that when he played music, the djinn entered the patient’s body and she started dancing with him. The djinn made women promise that they would come every year and dance with them, he said.

He said that after a woman had danced here for eight days the djinn would not come near her for 12 months. Women remained normal till the next annual gathering, he claimed.

Ghulam Khatoon Mari, an attendant of a patient, said that her cousin Sohrab Khatoon changed behaviour at home when she was possessed by a djinn. She would throw every object she could lay her hands on. The Faqir had asked her that they would have to live at the shrine for five days more, she said.

Shahul, a girl in her teens, said that djinn visited her twice a month for past four years. She fell unconscious when it tried to enter her body and then she knew nothing what was happening to her, she said.

Khadim Hussain Soomro, a social worker, said that all these women were mental patients and the government should make arrangements for tehir treatment.

Dr Mohammad Ismail Lashari said that most of them were patients suffering from hysteria. When they had an attack of the disease they gyrated their bodies, became tired and felt relaxed afterwards. Actually, they were ill and should get treatment, he said.