Indian police arrest five men accused of conducting human sacrifice at temple

Police still on the hunt for seven other accomplices

Police in India’s northeastern Assam state have arrested five men for allegedly beheading a woman for a human sacrifice four years ago.

Guwahati city’s police commissioner Diganta Bora said the beheaded body of a 64-year-old woman was found covered with a blanket on the staircase of the Joy Durga temple near the Kamakhya temple on 19 June 2019, hours after she was killed, reported Press Trust of India.

The woman was identified as Shanti Shaw, reported AFP.

While authorities had lodged a suo moto case – an action taken by government officials without a complaint being filed by a third party – and an investigation was launched, it was delayed due to lack of clues.

Mr Bora said authorities had determined that the woman had come from the West Bengal state along with a religious preacher and two other women to attend the annual Ambubachi festival in Guwahati and had been missing since.

Her son, a resident of West Bengal’s Hooghly district, identified his mother on the basis of her clothes and tattoos over a month later, police said.

An alleged ringleader, identified as 52-year-old Pradeep Pathak, had orchestrated the killing as part of a religious rite to mark the anniversary of his brother’s death, according to officials.

“The accused apparently believed that the sacrifice would appease the soul of the deceased,” Mr Bora was quoted as saying to AFP.

Mr Pathak and four others were taken into custody between 25 March and 1 April.

Police are still on the hunt for another seven accomplices.

Last year, two men were arrested for allegedly killing a six-year-old boy in national capital New Delhi.

Police claimed the men said they had murdered the child as an offering to Hindu diety Shiva to get rich.

India’s National Crime Records Bureau showed 103 cases of human sacrifice were registered in the country between 2014 and 2021.