PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Four Amish men have been arrested, charged in one of four bizarre attacks on other Amish people.

The attackers barge into homes and use scissors to cut the beards and hair of the victims.

Investigators believe members of the “Bergholz Clan,” which has been described as a group of religious castoffs, are responsible.

The attacks have happened in four different counties in Eastern Ohio: Jefferson County, Holmes County, Trumbull County and Carroll County.

Experts say that Amish men are required to let their beards grow after they’re married and that women follow Biblical rules that they’re not to cut their hair.

The attacks, they say, are meant to shame and humiliate the victims.

“As one Amish man told me he’d rather be dead than have his beard cut off,” said Jefferson County Sheriff Fred Abdalla.

Apparently, the motive was to punish people who had weak faith, and the attackers would take back hair to prove they had carried out the assaults.

The four men are charged with kidnapping and burglary in one of the four attacks. They’re being held on $250,000 bond each.

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