The Police Force in India, has arrested five suspects for allegedly killing a 7-year-old boy for sacrificial purposes, News About Nigeria reports.
Police officer Himanshu Mathur, disclosed this to newsmen on Friday, stating that the alleged ritual sacrifice was aimed at bringing good fortune to a public school.
The victim was found dead in his bed on Sunday night at the hostel where he lived in the city of Hathras, not far from the country’s famed Taj Mahal.
He stated that the boy was killed before a black magic ceremony conducted by the school’s director Dinesh Baghel’s father.
He added that instead of alerting authorities, Baghel hid the body in the trunk of his car.
“The boy was meant to be taken to an altar as part of a ritual, but got killed before the ceremony could be completed.
Baghel and his father were arrested along with three other teachers at the school, and further details on how the child had died has not been made available.
“The body is however, undergoing a post-mortem examination,” he stated.
India’s National Crime Records Bureau lodged 103 cases of human sacrifice in the country between 2014 and 2021.
Ritual killings are usually conducted to appease deities and are more common in tribal and remote areas, where belief in witchcraft and the occult is widespread.
Last year, five men were arrested for the murder of a 64-year-old woman who was killed and decapitated with a machete after visiting a temple in India’s remote northeast in 2019.
