Three arrested in India in occult human sacrifice case

In the southern Indian state of Kerala, police arrested three people accused of murdering two women allegedly as an occult human sacrifice. Authorities say that the people taken into custody confessed to the crime. A 60 year old traditional healer and masseur and his 52 year old wife were believed to have worked with an occult practitioner to improve their financial situation by carrying out the sacrifices.

The occultist convinced the couple that human sacrifice was needed to bring them great financial success. The first victim, a 49 year-old woman, disappeared on June 6 and was believed to have been severely tortured and then murdered before the trio cut their body into pieces. Police report that they have information suggesting that the occultist ate some of her flesh as well, but no concrete proof.

The victim was believed to have been lured through social media with the promise of a job and a salary. After the murder, the wealth the couple expected to follow the human sacrifice did not appear. They contacted the occult practitioner who informed them that their family was cursed, so for it the sacrifice to work, they would need to step it up, according to a police officer quoted in the Hindustan Times.

“The second murder was far more brutal because, after the first, [the husband] reached out to [the occultist] complaining that he had seen no gain in material wealth, and was told that there needed to be a more gruesome sacrifice because the family was under a curse.”

Their 52 year-old second victim was last seen in September and reported missing on September 26. She was a lottery ticket vendor just like the first victim. Both of them were exhumed on Tuesday by police who discovered them buried in the couple’s backyard, both hacked into pieces.

The Chief Minister of Kerala expressed his horror at the human sacrifices, calling them beyond imagination. He said that kidnapping and sacrificing people for superstition was shocking and numbs the human conscience. The Kochi City Police Commissioner described the occult practitioner that convinced the couple to take part in human sacrifice as depraved.

“[The occultist] committed acts of sexual perversion on women. He is a pervert and a psychopath.”