Five Men Arrested For An Alleged Human Sacrifice At Indian Temple

Five People Have Been Arrested For An Alleged Human Sacrifice At Indian Temple

Police in India arrested five men in connection to a suspected human sacrifice at a temple four years ago. The decapitated remains of Shanti Shaw, 64, were found on June 19, 2019, after she visited the Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati during the Hindu Ambubachi Mela, the Hindustan Times reported.

After years of no progress in the investigation, a raid on a residence in Cooch Behar led to the March 25 arrest of a Baba Ji, or revered priest, named Mata Prasad Pandey.

According to police, Pandey subsequently confessed that Shaw was killed while participating in a worship ceremony at the temple on the night of June 18, 2019.

“After offering the puja at Bhootnath at midnight, everyone went to Kamakhya first and later went to the cremation ground near Bagala Mandir. They took the victim to Joy Durga Mandir, performed a puja and consumed alcohol and meat,” Guwahati police commissioner Diganta Barah told the Hindustan Times on Tuesday.

 

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Each of the 12 participants in the puja were paid 10,000 rupees, or about $122, by a man named Pradeep Pathak, who sponsored the event in honor of his late brother.

Pathak was arrested from his home in Uttar Pradesh on April 1, the Hindustan Times said. Three ascetics — Suresh Paswan, Kanu Tantrik and Raju Baba — have also been taken into custody.

“Raju Baba … asked the woman to lie down. They then held her head, hands and legs and before she could make a move to escape, one of them took out a machete and beheaded her in the name of human sacrifice,” Barah said of the moment Shaw was killed.

Shaw’s body was allegedly left on a blanket on a staircase, where she was later discovered. Her head was reportedly disposed of in the Brahmaputra River.