Two newborns 'sacrificed' in UP village

Two newborns were reportedly ‘sacrificed’ in Uttar Pradesh's Hardoi district, about 100 km from here.

Police sources here said that the mutilated bodies of the newborns were recovered from a field near a brick kiln at Raddepurwa village in the district on Saturday. The police suspected that the two infants, who were barely four to five days old, had been sacrificed as some items used in rites of exorcism were found lying near the bodies of the children.

“The infants were brutally murdered... their hands and legs had been chopped off... things like incense sticks, red cloth, betel leaves and some coins were found near the bodies,'' said a district police official. The cops have as yet not traced the severed hands and legs of the babies. He said that the victims appeared to be twins. “There was no report of missing infants with the police,” the official said.

The killings triggered shock and panic in the area. The police said that the bodies had been sent for postmortem examination and a case registered.

Earlier too, there have been instances of the sacrifice of little children in different parts of the state.