Indian girl, 7, murdered and sacrificed for better harvest.
A girl of seven in India was murdered and had her liver cut in a ritual sacrifice to ensure a better harvest.
Two men, both poor farmers, have now been arrested in central India for allegedly carrying out the killing, police said today.
Lalita Tati disappeared in October and her dismembered remains were found a week later, said Rajendra Narayan Das, a senior police officer in the Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh state.
The state is the tenth largest in the country and beliefs in traditional healers runs deep.
Police arrested the men last week and they told officers they killed the girl to appease their gods and get a better harvest.
Tati was walking home after watching TV at a neighbour's house when she was kidnapped, Das said.
The two men confessed to cutting her open and removing her liver as an offering.
Das said the police had gathered enough evidence, apart from the confessions, to charge the two with murder.
They would face life in prison or even the death sentence if convicted.
The men were described as 'tribals', a term referring to the region's indigenous people, most of whom remain mired in poverty and illiteracy.
And this:
In December of last year seven people were imprisoned in the state of Maharashtra for the human sacrifice of two children aged seven and three. While two years ago in West Bengal the head and torso of a man was found in a temple to the goddess Kali.
Yikes.