Young Nepalese boy slain in human sacrifice ritual
The body of 10-year-old Jivan Kohar was found on July 24 on the outskirts of Kudiya village in southwest Nepal. The child had gone missing three days earlier.
Police superintendent Nal Prasad Upadhyaya, who headed the investigation, told CNN on Monday that Kodai Harijan admitted committing the gruesome crime with his relatives after consulting the priest. In some cultures, priests are believed to have magical or spiritual powers to cure the sick.
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Eleven people in total, including the holy man, have been arrested for their involvement, with the perpetrators facing a life sentence. At least five have confessed to their part in the killing.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/27/asia/nepal-human-sacrifice/
Inhuman.
= new reply since forum marked as read
but I might expect more accurate accounts from press in the region than from foreign press
ekantipur indicates location ("about 20km south of the East-West Highway"
and names those arrested: Kodai admitted his involvement in the crime and said that he “sacrificed” the boy ... to “chase away the evil spirits” from the body of his ailing son Bijaya. As induced by shaman Ganga .. Kodai .. murdered him to cure Bijaya, who reportedly demanded human sacrifice to exorcise evil spirits from his body ... Kodai said that he now felt guilty but he did that all to cure his son. The incident has mostly affected the women and children ... She said the children in the village are afraid to go outdoors ... Parents have stopped sending the children to schools ... Local administration has also mobilised security personnel to the village to assure residents that they were safe
The Hindu reports: a neighbour hosted a gathering of villagers in which he said that his own son was ill, possessed by evil spirits, and would need a human sacrifice. “Nobody took him seriously,” said Ram Baran Kohar, Jivan’s paternal grandfather, who was at the gathering ... Inspector Jagat Bhandu Pokharel of the Beltari area police .. originally handled the case before it was transferred to the district police ... “People mainly from remote parts of the country have superstitious beliefs,” said Mr. Pokharel. Yet he said he had never seen anything like “this kind of human sacrifice” ... The holy man, Ganga Chamar, was among those arrested ... The superintendent of police for the Nawalparasi district, Nal Prasad Upadhyay, said that the investigation was continuing and that the suspects would be examined to determine whether they were “mentally fit”
According to The Himalayan, One of the suspects, Kodai, reportedly told police that his son Bijay suffered some health problem on Tuesday and demanded that he had to be “pacified with human flesh.” The teen Bijay had said so under the “spell of a ghost that was driving him then,” Kodai claimed. Then, Kodai decided to offer the neighbourhood child to the god for the health of his son ... Meanwhile, locals destroyed the house of Kodai after the incident came to their knowledge
So we seem to have a story that involves a sick child "under the spell of a ghost" or "possessed by evil spirits" demanding "to be pacified with human flesh" and a local "shaman" or "holy man" advising the father who then calls locals together to explain that a "human sacrifice" is needed, a threat that no one takes seriously until someone is actually murdered. Although some accounts refer to "a religious ritual" or offering "the neighbourhood child to the god," the accounts are non-specific; local outrage suggests this was an unusual and unexpected event; and some authorities raised the question of mental problems
