Women lined up to get whipped by priests so as to "drive evil spirits away,"

TAMIL NADU: A bizarre video from a village in India’s Tamil Nadu state is doing rounds on the internet showing hundreds of women lined up to get whipped by priests so as to “drive evil spirits away,” as part of a peculiar annual.

Dressed in traditional attire, male priests cracked their whips on older women and schoolgirls alike, as they sat along the temple’s sprawling “lashing grounds.”

“Female devotees believe if they get whiplashes from the priest, the evil forces will leave their souls,” Selvakumar, a male local, said.

Saranya, a female devotee partaking I the ritual, said: “I am having health issues for a longer period with pain in hands and legs, so I visited the temple today to get whipped.”

Some Indian women were left wounded, and some started crying out loud from the pain inflicted by the rough whips, though their grimaces and cries didn’t ward off the women still in queue to for their turn to meet the so-called “blessed whippers”.

Watch the video below:

WATCH: Women at Indian village line up to get whipped ‘to cast away evil spirit’