The horror. A 7-year-old child was killed in India during a ritual sacrifice intended to bring good luck to his school, we learned from the police on Friday. The victim’s body was discovered on Sunday in the bed of the hostel where he lived in Hathras, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, not far from the Taj Mahal temple, said a police officer, Brahm Singh. “The boy was supposed to be burned at the stake as part of a ritual but he was killed before the ceremony was completed,” he added.
Five people were arrested in northern India after the murder. Among them are the principal of her school, her father and three teachers, all of whom admitted the facts, according to the police. They were placed in pre-trial detention. The director is suspected of having wanted to carry out a similar ritual with another child previously.
India’s National Crime Statistics Bureau recorded 103 ritual killings in the country between 2014 and 2021. Last year, police arrested five people after the 2019 murder in northeast India of A 64-year-old woman beheaded by a man to, according to investigators, commemorate the death of her brother.