In a bizarre incident of human sacrifice, a father killed his 13-year-old son to satisfy goddess Durga in a remote village in Assam’s Tinsukia district.
The incident took place at Guijan, located over 400 kms away from Assam’s main city Guwahati, police said on Thursday adding that the accused also made similar attempt to sacrifice his wife and 10-year old-daughter, who however, managed to escape. “The accused, Parasuram Koiri had been a devotee of the goddess Durga. He confessed that the goddess came in his dreams recently and asked him to sacrifice his family,” said police while quoting the confession of 44-year-old person.
“On Wednesday, he got up early and offered his prayers to the goddess and killed his son Biru, who was sleeping with a dao (machete),” police said adding that his wife lakshmi (38), who woke up after this and took hold of their daughter and ran outside. The accused chased them and tried to kill them too but they managed to escape with severe injuries, police said adding that the local people later informed the police, who had arrested him.
“He confessed that he had killed his son but said that it was the wish of the goddess,” police said quoting Parasuram. lakshmi and her daughter Sibani received severe injuries and they had been shifted to Assam Medical College in Dibrugarh for better treatment.
Some of the communities in remote areas of the State go for human sacrifice sometime due to ignorance and superstitious beliefs. In the month of June this year, a 55-year-old man was killed by villagers and later buried, in a bid to ‘satisfy a goddess’ in a remote village in Assam’s Barak Valley area. The Assam Police had in 2001 launched Project Prahari to encourage participatory development and people-friendly policing to do away with these kinds of evil practices and superstitions in the State.