Explained: Kerala’s ‘human sacrifice’ case and India’s shocking record of killings in the name of god

Blood-curdling details keep emerging from the Kerala human sacrifice case, which has sent shockwaves across the country.

The police revealed that two women were sacrificed in the Elanthoor village of Pathanamthitta district and their body parts were probably cooked and consumed by a medic couple on the false promise that they would attain wealth.

The three conspirators in the case — a perverted Muhammad Shafi, who claimed to be a sorcerer, and the couple, Bhagaval Singh and his wife Laila — have now been arrested and sent for three weeks.

Also read: Explained: How an agent convinced Kerala medic couple to offer human sacrifice of two women

Cochin Police Commissioner CH Nagaraju said the murders took place over four months and were suspected to be part of a ritual done for “financial benefits”. He added that the murders were linked to black magic practices and they were still investigating the matter.

Numbers reveal a different truth

Reacting to the matter, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the crime had “shocked the human conscience” and that abducting and killing people for superstitious reasons was a crime “beyond imagination in a state like Kerala”.

The depravity of the case has made national headlines and shocked the people of the country. Many have questioned how an educated state like Kerala could see such a crime, involving human sacrifice and witchcraft.

However, a look at the data published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reveals that murders related to human sacrifices and witchcraft are prevalent in the country.

In 2021, India recorded a total of five deaths in connection to human sacrifices while another 68 deaths were linked to witchcraft.

When it comes to a state-wise breakdown of human sacrifice deaths in 2021, Kerala saw two cases whereas Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana each reported a case.

In 2020, 11 murders were linked to human sacrifices and 88 in connection to witchcraft.

The year 2017 saw a massive rise in murders linked to sacrifices with the NCRB data showing that there were 19 cases in that year. Of these 19, Karnataka, Haryana and Maharashtra recorded five cases each with the remaining numbers coming from states such as Jharkhand (2), Assam (1) and Uttar Pradesh (1).

Avinash Patil, former president of Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, in a report published by the South China Morning Post said that the practice of human sacrifices is largely associated with the cult of Tantrism, a spiritual movement which originated in medieval India.

Abraham Eraly, in his 2011 book, The First Spring: The Golden Age of India, noted that the cult enjoyed its widest popularity in 8th century India, and many tantric rites involved blood sacrifice, human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism.

When it comes to murders linked to witchcraft, in 2021, Chhattisgarh recorded the most cases — 20, followed by Madhya Pradesh (18), Telangana (11), Andhra Pradesh (6), Bihar (4), Jharkhand (3), Gujarat and Odisha (2) and Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh with one each.

Problem of human sacrifices in India

In the Kerala case, Mohammed Shafi, the main mastermind, convinced the couple of Bhagaval Singh and Laila Singh to kill the two women — Roslyn, 49, and Padmam, 52 — in order to get rich.

This case is a part of a larger problem in India where ‘godmen’ convince people of committing human sacrifices for various reasons — from getting rich, to curing people or to curry favour with the gods.

While India is gripped by the murders in Kerala, two men were arrested in Delhi earlier this month for killing a six-year-old boy in south Delhi’s Lodhi Colony in a human sacrifice case.

The police said that the two accused confessed that they were under the influence of cannabis when they had a vision of Lord Shiva telling them to ‘sacrifice a child’ if they wanted to get rich. They then caught hold of the victim who happened to be passing by their jhuggi (hutment) at that very moment, slit his throat and stabbed him multiple times on the back of his head.

Another case that shocked the nation emerged in May 2020 when a priest hacked a 52-year-old man to death inside a temple premise in Odisha’s Cuttack district, claiming that he “performed a human sacrifice to end the COVID-19 pandemic”.

The priest, Sansari Ojha, later surrendered to the police and confessed to his crime. The police had then said, “Ojha claimed he had received an order from the goddess in his dream to perform a human sacrifice to end the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In January of the same year, a man killed his 12-year-old sister to appease a goddess in Odisha. Incidentally, the man, Subhoban Rana, had just been let out of prison on bail for a similar crime.

Another human sacrifice tale emerged in 2017 from the state of Karnataka. Three people were arrested for the alleged sacrifice of a 10-year-old girl. Investigations revealed that minor was murdered and offered as a sacrifice to cure her uncle of paralysis.

One of the accused, Naseema Taj, claimed to be a sorceress and had convinced the others of the murder as part of a ritual to cure the man.

Hamid Dabholkar, son of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, in a SCMP report says: “Although India is now a rapidly emerging global economy, religious faith makes for a large portion of its social fabric. To exploit these beliefs, thousands of tantrics and self-styled ‘godmen’ have set up shop in every city and village here. These men claim to possess supernatural powers, convince others that they are divine reincarnates through bogus magic tricks, and dupe scores of people every day.”

With inputs from agencies

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