Human sacrifice in Kerala village

Thiruvananthapuram: A Kerala couple sold to the idea that human sacrifice could lead to prosperity, lured two women to their Pathanamthitta house over a four-month period, killed them and buried them in the backyard after cutting their body into pieces.

The couple and their accomplice, who came up with the plan to get rich and helped them murder the two middle-aged women, have been arrested, police said. The body parts of one of the two women, Padma, have been exhumed and will be sent for a confirmatory DNA test, said Kochi police commissioner CH Nagaraju after the three were arrested.

The three have been identified as Bhagaval Singh, who described himself as a traditional healer, his wife Laila and Mohammad Shafi, alias Rasheed. The couple came in contact with Mohd Shafi about eight months ago when they responded to his advertisement in a local newspaper that promised to conduct some rituals for the prosperity of clients.

Over the next weeks and months, Shafi became close to the couple and persuaded them that they should go for a human sacrifice to change their fortune. Kochi Police Commissioner Ch Nagaraju said that Shafi had convinced Roselie, a lottery ticket vendor from Kaladi in Ernakulam, to come to the couple's house for some work in June. She was killed to "propitiate their god" but after some time, the couple figured that it hadn't made a difference to their life and complained to Shafi. But he told that they were under some sort of a curse and would need another sacrifice.

It was in this context that Shafi got P Padma, also a lottery ticket seller, a native of Ponnurunni on the outskirts of Kochi, over to the couple's family in September. She was also killed, and her body parts buried in the compound, near the spot Roselie lay. But this time, the police followed up on the missing complaint that Padma's sister filed on September 27, the day she went missing. The police said her phone's location was shown to be in Pathanamthitta district's Thriuvalla. Also, her phone records indicated that she had made many calls to Shafi around the time that she disappeared.

When Shafi was initially questioned, Nagaraju said, he was evasive. He was subsequently taken into custody, the Kochi police chief said. Shafi told the investigators that the woman they were looking for was dead, and that she wasn't the only one. The couple was also arrested. "During questioning, the accused admitted that both were killed brutally," Nagaraju said. He added that a special investigation team was being set up to gather all evidence in this case for a watertight case against the accused.The gruesome murders have sent shock waves in the state. Neighbours of Singh, a traditional healer, said it was difficult for them to believe he was a party to gory murders.