Four-year-old boy 'beheaded in witchcraft ritual' in India
Tirumala Rao, 35, snatched the boy while he was returning home from a nursery
PHOTO: ASSOCIATEDPRESS
A four-year-old boy has reportedly been beheaded in a dreadful “human sacrifice" ritual in a village in India.
A 35-year-old man, Tirumala Rao, snatched the boy while he was returning home from a nursery in the isolated district of Prakasam in Andhra Pradesh and decapitated the boy in a ceremony to honour the Hindu Godess ‘Kali’. The man was allegedly seeking ‘divine powers’, according to the Times of India.
Read: Indian man confesses to multiple child murders: police
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 villagers found him and tried to set him on fire. However, he was rescued by the elders of the village who called the police. Rao was then taken to the hospital having suffered 40 per cent burns.
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 article originally appeared on The Telegraph.
A 35-year-old man, Tirumala Rao, snatched the boy while he was returning home from a nursery in the isolated district of Prakasam in Andhra Pradesh and decapitated the boy in a ceremony to honour the Hindu Godess ‘Kali’. The man was allegedly seeking ‘divine powers’, according to the Times of India.
Read: Indian man confesses to multiple child murders: police
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 villagers found him and tried to set him on fire. However, he was rescued by the elders of the village who called the police. Rao was then taken to the hospital having suffered 40 per cent burns.
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 article originally appeared on The Telegraph.