A lynch mob has beaten a guru to death in India after he allegedly beheaded a five-year-old boy as part of a grisly sacrifice to the Hindu god of death.
Gruesome video of the beating shows a mob using their feet, fists, and large pieces of wood to strike Mirdha, who is believed to be dead as the footage starts.
Locals at the tea estate said Mirdha was a sorcerer and had ‘sacrificed’ the boy during his prayers – or puja – towards Kali, the Hindu goddess of death.
They accused Mirdha of forcing Sajan inside his home before attacking him. The boy’s severed head was found beside his body.
Once the villagers realised what had happened, the holy man was lynched and his house was burned down before police could arrive.
Once officers reached the remote village they recovered idols of gods and goddesses along with other religious material from inside the prayer room where the attack took place.
While locals insisted that the young boy was killed as part of a ritual, police superintendent Sanjukta Parasar, said that attack could have been a revenge killing.
According to Parasar, Mirdha was involved in a long-running dispute with the victim’s father.
A local resident said, ‘The accused [Mirdha] allegedly picked up a quarrel with the father of the child on Wednesday. They were in argument for hours.
‘That evening, he allegedly beheaded the boy with a machete after dragging him into his house.’
Police are trying to identify those involved in the lynching, but are yet to make any arrests.
Child sacrifice has a long an troubled history in India, growing out of the tradition of Tantrism, a series of spiritual practices similar to the Western occult.
While in Western culture, Tantric practices are often associated with sex or yoga, in remote parts of India, especially in the impoverished north, Tantrics are shaman-like practitioners.
In remote regions, Tantric priests are consulted on everything from marital strife to ill health, and claim to be able to channel the energies of the universe to resolve problems.
The Hindu god Kali, who is often painted holding a severed head while wearing a necklace of skulls, is often associated with human sacrifice, and formed the basis for the sacrificial cult in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom.
It is not known exactly how many people are sacrificed each year in India, though it is estimated to be in the hundreds, with women and children the most likely victims as they are easier to kidnap.
Critics have long accused the government of covering up cases, making the true scope of the problem hard to determine.
