Indian men arrested, accused of making human sacrifice to goddess

Police in Eastern India have arrested three men in connection to a beheading that is thought to be part of a human sacrifice to the goddess Kali.

The nude, decapitated body of a male factory worker was found in a section of a temple dedicated to the Hindu goddess Kali in West Bengal, India. His head was smeared with red vermilion and had flowers and incense sticks surrounding it. "Three men, all in their late 30s, have been arrested in connection with the beheading, District police chief Rabindranath Mukherjee told Sky News. Two of the arrested men work in a factory where the victim once worked and the third man was a local laborer. "We heard that incidents of human sacrifice by tantriks in different temples of the goddess Kali in Birbhum were common over a century ago," a priest named Utpal Bhattacharya said. The priest went on to explain that the Birbhum district of West Bengal is considered a center of energy and power in Hindu mythology. In March, a married couple in Western India were arrested for allegedly killing five young boys after a mystic told them it would help the wife conceive. And in September last year, police in Northern India arrested four people after a nine-year-old boy was kidnapped and murdered in a case of suspected human sacrifice.