Indian couple dies in cruel ritual
An Indian couple beheaded themselves in a hut with a device they made themselves. The beheading was apparently part of a ritual.
A couple in India are said to have beheaded themselves with a kind of guillotine during a bizarre ritual. The two were found in a hut in the state of Gujarat in western India, the Hindustan Times reports, citing local police reports.
According to this, the couple first built an altar with a fireplace, as used in many Hindu rituals. Then they would have placed their heads under a mechanism resembling a guillotine. The severed body parts were then rolled into the fire. The police found a message from the couple to their relatives – two children and the parents of the deceased. According to neighbors, the couple had been praying in the hut every day for a year.
Human sacrifices happen again and again
Fire plays a special role in Hinduism, a fire altar is danced around at weddings, but it is also used for offerings. According to the Hindustan Times, human sacrifices are a regular occurrence in India, with more than 100 cases between 2014 and 2021. Most of the time, however, people were killed by others, and suicide is rather rare. In early April, five men were arrested for killing a woman in a temple in an alleged ritual in 2019.
