Kerala human sacrifice: Police labels prime accused as psychopath, pervert

Kochi, Oct 12: In the human sacrifice case, a pervert is the prime accused, who exploited the fears of a man and his wife over their financial woes and two women were killed following torture, police said here on Wednesday.

All the three accused were produced by police before a court here and they were remanded in judicial custody.

Police said they would move the court seeking the custody of the accused for further interrogation.

Advocate B A Aloor, known for representing the accused in sensational cases appeared for the trio.

Speaking to reportes on solving the case that became sensational, Kochi City Police Commissioner Nagaraju Chakilam said the 52-year old Mohammed Shafi, the prime accused, is a history-sheeter.

He took undue advantage of the concerns of Bhagaval Singh (68) and his wife Laila (59) over their financial problems.

Shafi convinced the couple that human sacrifice would solve their financial issues and brought them under his influence. Singh was a traditional massage therapist.

On news reports that the trio was engaged in 'cannibalism,' he said that this possibility was also being investigated, but there was no evidence to confirm it.

The Commissioner said Shafi is a pervert and a sadist, with a mindset to cause injury, harm and death. "He will make up any story, trap anyone."

He said Shafi faces many cases, including theft and rape, against him. In one of the rape cases, a 75-year-old woman was raped, and was inflicted injuries on various parts of her body.

In the human sacrifice case, the two victims had injuries in their private parts, Nagaraju said.

The senior police official said all the three accused have direct participation in both the killings, but the accused couple did not have a history of crime.

The probe to trace Padma, who went missing in September from Elamkulam near here led to the detection of killing of another victim, Roslin, a Chalakudy resident, who disappeared in June.

"All we had was a CCTV visual of a lady getting into a car with Shafi. Nothing else. Police team took the scientific route, traced them to the house at Elanthoor, questioned the couple and the whole incident unfolded," Nagaraju said.

According to the police remand report, the two victims underwent torture. The breasts of one of them had been chopped off. The body of the other victim was cut into 56 pieces by the accused persons.

The victims were tied to a cot before they were killed and the accused persons used a knife to inflict severe injuries on their private parts.

They were strangled by the trio before burying their chopped bodies in the pits on the premises of the couple's house in Elanthoor village of Pathanamthitta district, the report said.

"The accused conspired to conduct the human sacrifice with an intention to bring prosperity in the life of the second and third accused by pleasing the goddess in favour of Singh and his wife Laila," it said.

Shafi had lured one of the women and managed to bring her to Singh's house by offering her Rs 15,000 for sex work, it said.

The other woman was persuaded by promising a whopping Rs 10 lakh to act in a porn film and brought to the crime scene, the report added.

The chopped body parts of the killed women were exhumed on October 11.

BJP leader Prakash Javadekar criticised the CPI(M)-led government over the human sacrifice and claimed that crimes against women were on the rise in Kerala.