NEW DELHI, India: Kidnappers smashed a 10yearold boy’s brains with a stone and buried him ina field as a sacrifice to the gods to help locate a bore well in western India, the Press Trust of India reported.
The boy was returning home to Kurkumbh village, near Pune, a week ago when he was lured to a farm by a friend of the family on orders from “devashi” (magician), police told the news agency.
The magician ordered that the boy be sexually assaulted and his head smashed with a stone before he was buried to assist the search for a well.
A man, who was not identified, had confessed to killing the boy at the insistence of the “devashi”, PTI said.
Human sacrifice in the subcontinent is a centuries old tradition that the authorities have struggled to stamp out.
A man was beheaded on a Hindu temple altar in Uttar Pradesh last August. The previous month a father, who said he was trying to bring peace to India, hacked off his son’s head with an axe in broad daylight in New Delhi park.
A six month girl was beheaded over a Hindu altar in Bihar in April of last year.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 20, 1987
