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Bizarre footage has emerged of a ritual at an Indian temple that saw around 5,000 women get voluntarily flogged by priests.
The video, filmed in Tamil Nadu in the south of the country, shows the women lined up on their knees on a dusty road, before they're whipped ferociously by the religious leaders.
The mass flogging ceremony, which forms part of the Vijayadashami Festival, takes place every year and the women and children offer themselves up to be whipped.
The bizarre and painful looking ritual supposedly casts out evil spirits and cures illnesses and is carried out while police officers look on.