Police in India said on Friday, September 27 (Sixth Mizan) that five people were arrested for allegedly killing a seven-year-old boy who was called a victim to bring “blessing and wealth” to a school.
The body of the victim was found on Sunday night in a dormitory in the city of Hatras, India, near the Taj Mahal, where the child lived.
The police said that if Dinesh Bagel, the principal of the school, had informed the police, he had hidden the body of the child in the trunk of his car.
Himanshu Mathur, a police officer, told AFP that the boy was killed before the black magic ceremony organized by Father Bagel.
And he said: “This boy was supposed to be taken to the altar as part of a ceremony, but he was killed before the ceremony was over.”
Mathur added that Bagil and his father along with three other school teachers were arrested.
Mathur did not provide further details on how the child died, and local media reported that the body is under forensic examination.
The National Crime Records Bureau of India has registered 103 cases of human sacrifice between the years 2014 and 2021 in this country.
Religious killings are usually carried out to please the gods and mostly take place in tribal and remote areas, where the belief in witchcraft and occultism is common.
Last year, the police arrested five men on charges of murdering a 64-year-old woman in 2019 who was killed with a machete and beheaded after visiting a temple in northeastern India.
The police said that the leader of this group, the suspect will be holding a religious ceremony on the occasion of his brother’s death anniversary.