Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 11: The Kerala police is claimed to have unearthed a case of “human sacrifice” killing two women and burying their bodies in the house courtyard for financial prosperity.
The two victims, both lottery vendors, were kidnapped, beheaded and buried as part of the suspected ‘witchcraft ritual’ at Elanthoor village in Pathanamthitta district, the police said on Tuesday. The police on Tuesday arrested one person, Shafi alias Rasheed from Perumbavoor, suspected to be the main culprit who had instigated the couple to “sacrifice” the two women to gain financial prosperity, while the couple Bhagaval Singh, a traditional healer who used to attend to patients at his home, and his wife Laila, were held from Elanthoor earlier and are already in custody.
“He is the first accused in the case. The arrest of the healer and his wife would be recorded soon. The women were taken to the healer by Shafi on the promise of money. They adopted a very cruel method to kill the women,” Kochi City Police Commissioner C H Nagaraju said.
“We suspect that a ritualistic human sacrifice has taken place. We have to exhume the bodies of the women. The women were beheaded and their bodies were buried at Elanthoor in Pathanamthitta,” he added.
The police have initiated steps to exhume the bodies. “This is not going to be an ordinary missing case. This is a very complicated case with many layers,” Nagaraju said.
According to the police, two lottery vendors from Ernakulam district named Roslin and Padma were reported missing in June and September, respectively. The police learnt of the ‘human sacrifice’ as part of their investigation into Padma’s case.
Mr Nagaraju said the main objective of the human sacrifice was the couple’s financial prosperity. “We have already got the confessional statements of the couple and the agent. The women were killed by the couple in a very cruel manner. The couple had been facing a financial crisis and they decided to sacrifice the women to appease God and come out of the crisis,” Nagaraju said. The bodies, reportedly chopped into pieces, were buried on the farmland adjacent to the couple’s house, he added.
The investigation into the missing women started after on September 26, a woman named Palaniyamma filed a complaint at the Kadavanthra police station, under the Kochi City police, reporting her sister Padma was missing. Padma hailed from Dharmapuri in Tamil Nadu but had been staying in Kochi for the last few months. An analysis of mobile phone records led the police to Shafi. The police took Shafi into custody and his interrogation led to the expose of the twin murders.
It was on June 8 that Roslin, 49, went missing. A lottery vendor at Kalady in Ernakulam district, she was staying with her partner. Her daughter Manju, who works as a teacher in Uttar Pradesh, came to Kerala and filed a complaint with the Kalady police on August 17. However, the Kalady police failed to find any leads.
Shafi allegedly exploited the financial constraints of the two women and lured them to Singh, the police said. According to the police, Shafi had befriended Singh through social media after creating a fake profile. A preliminary probe has revealed that Shafi made the couple believe that a human sacrifice would bring them financial prosperity, the police said, adding that he brought the women to the healer’s house and also doubled up as a black magic practitioner. The police are also checking if Shafi pocketed money from the couple to bring the women to them.
Singh, whose family are traditional healers at Elanthoor, has an active social media presence and has thousands of followers. Locals said that he was an active CPI(M) worker. Singh used to post haikus on his social media pages and even used to conduct classes on haiku poetry.
Meawhile, in another incident in Karnataka Jagadeesha Gowda, claimed to be a staunch BJP supporter, and his son have been accused of keeping 16 Dalit people locked up for days in his coffee plantation. The victims say they were tortured. One of them, a pregnant woman, lost her baby after he assaulted her, the police said. A police case has been registered and the woman is undergoing treatment at the district hospital. A case has been registered under the law against atrocities on Dalits naming Jagadeesha Gowda and his son Tilak Gowda. Both are on the run and a search is on, the police said.
The BJP, however, has distanced itself from the man. The party’s district spokesperson dismissed claims that he is a party leader. “Neither is Jagadeesha a party worker nor a member. He’s just a BJP supporter. He is just like any other voter,” said Varasiddhi Venugopal.
The victims were working as daily wagers at the coffee plantation in Jenugadde village in Chikkmagaluru district. The police said they had borrowed money from the owner, amounting to ₹ 9 lakh. When they failed to repay the loan, they were locked up.
