Four-year-old boy 'beheaded in human sacrifice witchcraft ritual in India'
Villager set alight after being accused of beheading a small boy in India, according to reports
It was reported the man murdered the child as an offering to the Indian Goddess Kali Photo: Alamy Stock Photo
By Barney Henderson
6:38PM BST 02 Oct 2015
A four-year-old boy has reportedly been beheaded as a "human sacrifice" as part of a witchcraft ritual in India.
The man accused of carrying out the "ritual" was apparently caught by a village mob and set alight in a case that has shocked the country.
Tirumala Rao seized the child, named in reports as Manu Sagar, from a nursery in the Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh, southern India.
He then took the boy to his house and cut off his head, offering the child's blood to Goddess Kali seeking "divine powers", the Times of India reported.
The boy's mother raised the alarm when she went to the nursery to collect him and he was not there.
Rao fled his house but was found and set upon by a mob who tried to lynch him in the remote village where the incident is alleged to have taken place.
He was doused in kerosene and set alight, at which point he pleaded with the mob that he had the power to bring the boy back to life, The Indian Express reported.
The man survived with burns and was taken to hospital under police guard.
C Srikant M Lakshman, superintendent of police, said Rao had a reputation in the village of keeping ties with practitioners of "tantric rituals".
He had allegedly attempted to abduct an 18-month-old girl earlier this week.
"This is a first-of-its-kind incident in Prakasam district," said SP Lakshman according to The Hindu.
"Once he recovers, he will be subjected to questioning after an examination of his mental condition by a psychiatrist."
Venkata Rao, Rao's brother, reportedly said the accused had once attacked him with a sickle and had a history of strange behaviour causing his wife to leave him.
C Seshaiah, a member of the Indian Rationalists movement, which promotes skepticism of supernatural claims, said: “Such things might have happened in these parts during British times but they are uncommon in independent India though animal sacrifices are often performed to appease villages deities."
Large parts of rural India are unadministerd, leading to the prevalence of "village justice".
In August it emerged that two sisters from a village in Uttar Pradesh, 30 miles from the capital Delhi, - one aged only 15-years - were ordered by a "village council" to be raped as "punishment" for their brother running away with a married woman from a higher caste.
