A priest allegedly forced a woman daily wager to sit naked in front of him while performing black magic rituals for unearthing buried treasure inside a house in Karnataka’s Ramanagara. The woman and her minor daughter were rescued while the 40-year-old priest, along with five others, was arrested by the police under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code and Karnataka Prevention and Eradication of Inhuman Evil Practices and Black Magic Act.
The arrestees have been identified as priest Shahikumar, his aide Mohan, masons Lakshminarasappa, Lokesh, Nagaraj and Parthasarathi. According to the police, Shahikumar hails from Tamil Nadu. One Srinivas, who is an agriculturist from Karnataka’s Bhoonhalli came in contact with Shahikumar in 2019 when he had gone to Tamil Nadu for attending a marriage. In early 2020, Shahikumar came to Srinivas’s house, which was constructed more than 75 years ago. Shahikumar informed Srinivas that there was hidden treasure inside his house, according to a report by The Times of India.
“The priest told Srinivas his family would face misfortunes if he did not discover the treasure. Shashukumar promised to do so and took an advance of Rs 20,000 from Srinivas. Due to COVID-19 lockdown and other issues, Shashikumar kept postponing the task. Two months ago, he visited Srinivas again and said they would start the work,” the report quoted an investigating officer as saying.
The priest chose a room in the agriculturist’s house for performing the rituals. He stated that the treasure would automatically unearth if a naked woman was made to sit in front of him during the pooja. He even insisted that the woman should belong to the family of Srinivas. They, however, chose a female daily wager to sit naked before him during the rituals. She was paid Rs 5,000 for the task, TOI reported citing sources.
Reports claimed that the woman’s four-year-old daughter was brought to the spot for being offered as a human sacrifice during the rituals to unearth the hidden treasure. Superintendent of police (Ramnagara) S Girish, however, rejected such reports. “Locals alerted police about suspicious activities of the priest and others. The girl is the woman’s daughter,” the report quoted the SP as saying.
This comes weeks after two alleged sex workers were allegedly killed by a childless couple within one week at the instance of a black magic practitioner who goaded them into performing ‘human sacrifice’ to get kids. The incident took place in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior and five people, including the couple and the black magic practitioner, were arrested by the police.