Residents of two villages in Kalasin held rituals yesterday in a bid to ward off an evil spirit believed responsible for the sudden deaths of three local men.

THE JUSTICE MINISTRY is aiding 300 villagers in Kalasin who claimed to have been duped by a community-based financial institute to take out a Bt150,000-Bt200,000 loan per head, totalling Bt65 million, from a bank to fund the institute’s operations and then faced lawsuits by the bank demanding they repay the debts.