The man had one problem: he could not find a wife. He had sought help from multiple tantrics and bhopas — practitioners of ritual occult magic — without success. One of them finally had a solution.
He needed to perform a narbali. A human sacrifice.
On Thursday, in a village in Pali district, Rajasthan, the accused intercepted 11-year-old Dhawan as the boy walked home from his madrasa (Quranic school). He led the child into the forest toward a pond. He bound his hands and feet. He stuffed a cloth into his mouth to silence him. Then he slit the boy’s throat with a bladed weapon, surrounded by ritual offerings and a shattered earthen pot.
He left Dhawan’s body in the dirt, soaked in blood, and walked back to the village.
That evening, in a display of cold nerve, the accused showed up at Dhawan’s grandfather’s house and told him directly that his grandson’s body was lying by the pond. When the family raised the alarm and called police, the accused fled.
THE ARREST
Police surrounded and arrested him Friday morning. Under interrogation, he confessed.
He told investigators he had been unable to marry for years. He had visited numerous tantrics and bhopas in search of a fix. One had finally told him that a human sacrifice — a narbali — would remove the cosmic obstacles to his marriage, according to NDTV Rajasthan.
The murder weapon was recovered. A forensic science team gathered evidence at the scene. Dhawan’s autopsy was completed Friday evening; his body was returned to his family.
Police are still hunting the tantric who allegedly prescribed the murder.
RITUAL MURDER IN INDIA: A RECURRING CRIME
Human sacrifice motivated by occult belief is not a rare occurrence in India. In 2023, a double ritual murder in the state of Kerala shocked the country. Two victims were killed at the direction of a black magic practitioner who promised wealth and power in exchange.
Pali district sits in the state of Rajasthan, in northwestern India, roughly 530 kilometres southwest of New Delhi.
In India, murder carries a sentence of life imprisonment. Those who order or abet ritual killings face the same penalties.
