Six beheadings blamed on sect shock Kenyans

NAIROBI, May 22 (Reuters) Villagers in central Kenya found heads placed on poles and body parts scattered in bushes in a multiple murder media blamed today on an outlawed sect linked to extortion.

Mungiki has fought weeks of battles with minibus operators who are resisting demands for protection money from their business, which the government has estimated nets more than 90 million Kenya shillings (1.35 million dollars) a day nationwide.

The remains of six people were found after attacks on Sunday and Monday.

Recently, Mungiki has taken to extorting shops, bars and rental houses, and been accused of kidnappings.

With presidential elections due in the east African nation in December, many commentators suspected a political hand behind violence threatening the government's authority.

''(Mungiki) is out to show the police and other government organs are feeble, helpless and unable to protect anyone who defies it,'' the Daily Nation newspaper said today in a front page editorial.

Police arrested six men whom they paraded at a station in Nairobi and urged the public to help identify more suspects.

''We don't want to concentrate on big words like Mungiki. We want the public to come up with names of individuals amongst themselves who they know are involved in illegal activities,'' police spokesman Eric Kiraithe told reporters.

Fear spread quickly through Murang'a and Kiambu districts with some families fleeing after discover of the remains.

''I had gone out to answer a call of nature at around 3 am when I switched on my torch and saw the head of a human being placed on the roof of my chicken pen,'' Robert Kiunjuri, a teacher in Kianjogu village, told the Nation.

''MULTITUDE'' The 50-year-old victim's headless body was dumped at the gate of a chief -- a junior government official. Another was perched atop a telephone pole about a mile away, and another found after villagers heard two dogs fighting over it.

In Kiambu, which borders Nairobi, one head was left at a bus stop in the centre of the main town, local media said. A torso and three severed legs were discovered in a ditch in a nearby village.

The victims all appeared to be local labourers and peasant farmers with no known Mungiki links.

Mungiki, whose name means ''multitude'' in the Kikuyu tribal language, was banned in 2002 after members armed with knives and clubs killed more than 20 people in a Nairobi slum.

The group instils fear by promoting archaic Kikuyu rituals like swearing oaths and female circumcision, and many Kenyans believe it has been supported by corrupt politicians, Reuters SS DB1839