Kerala human sacrifice case not first to catch attention. How people often fall prey is a concern

Kerala Human sacrifice story: Pathanamthitta human sacrifice case has shocked not only Kerala but the entire country. The details of the crime are beyond one’s imagination. It once again raised the superstition issue which is usually ignored by the administration and by society at large.

Unfortunately, we often come across such gruesome crimes conducted in the name of religious faith. Recently, during Durga Puja, two persons killed a six-year-old boy in south Delhi’s Lodhi Colony on October 3. The accused, both 19-years-old construction workers told the police that they were under the influence of cannabis when they had a vision of Lord telling them to ‘sacrifice a child’ if they wanted to get rich. 

4-year-ago in 2018, a ritual mass suicide of eleven family members a family from Burari, Delhi took place. Such incidents, that shock the human conscience, indicates the pressing requirement for stringent law to check the menace and a long-term social campaign for awareness across the nation. Be it a remote village or metro city, people often fall prey to superstition. 

Here are all details you want to know about Kerala incident

1. The women in the shocking human sacrifice case had undergone gruesome tortures as the breasts of one of them had been chopped off and the body of the other was cut into 56 pieces by the accused, according to the police report
2. The ruling CPI (M) in Kerala stressed the need for new legislation to curb such superstitious practices and urged strict implementation of the existing laws in this regard
3. The post-mortem of bodies of the two deceased women, which were exhumed on October 11, as part of an investigation into a gruesome human sacrifice case at Elanthoor in Pathanamthitta to conclude today
4. The bodies of the deceased women will be handed over to the relatives only after a detailed post-mortem and DNA test, hospital sources said. Sources said the post-mortem in the two cases were complicated as the bodies have started decomposing.
5. Police asked the police surgeon to provide a detailed report on the number of injuries on the body and the details on all internal organs
6. The bodies, which were exhumed on October 11, were brought to Kottayam Medical College that night itself.
7. The DNA test will be conducted at the laboratory in Thiruvananthapuram. 
8. The court had remanded the prime accused Shafi (52), Bhagaval Singh (68), a massage therapist and his wife Laila (59) to 14-day judicial custody.
9. "The accused conspired to conduct the human sacrifice with an intention to bring prosperity in the life of the second and third accused by pleasing the goddess in favour of Singh and his wife Laila," the remand report had said. The first woman went missing on September 26 and the probe led to Shafi. On further interrogating him, police found the trio had earlier murdered the second victim in a similar manner in June.
10. Such an incident which shocked the human conscience, cannot be prevented by law alone but a mass public movement and awareness should emerge in the society against such practices, the state secretariat of the Left party said here in a statement on Wednesday.

(With PTI input)

Also Read: Kerala: 'Cannibalism' likely in murder and 'human sacrifice' case, says police 

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