Indian police said on Wednesday that they had arrested three people, including a self-proclaimed occultist, for killing two women because they thought that human sacrifice would bring them wealth.

Police spokesperson Pramod Kumar told AFP that a couple having financial troubles hired Mohammed Shafi 300,000 rupees ($3,640) to “prepare” two victims, whom he then “brutally assaulted and murdered” in separate rites three months apart.

According to the police report, Shafi convinced Bhagaval Singh and his wife Laila of Kerala that “human sacrifice was the finest path to earn wealth.”

Police said Shafi, a “sexual pervert” who had been accused of rape previously, “enticed” the first victim to Singh’s house in June by offering her a part in a local film.

After the couple complained that their luck hadn’t changed, investigators believe Shafi convinced them to do another sacrifice in September.
When Kumar and his team were looking into the disappearance of the first girl, they discovered that the last known location of the second missing girl, from September, was also near the couple’s home.

Lottery ticket sales were the girls’ main source of income. Their mangled remains were buried on the couple’s property. Indeed, the police are looking into whether or not Shafi showed similar worry in other contexts.

Human Sacrifice Cult

The Hindustan Occasions said that Singh’s neighbors found it “difficult for them to understand” that the self-proclaimed traditional healer was actually responsible for a slew of gruesome killings.

“Back in the day, a lot of people came here to get treatment for things like broken bones and bruises. We never had any reason to suspect anything untoward, and he was kind and polite as well,” Gopan Okay. told the newspaper.

Experts argue that in some remote and tribal regions of India, human sacrifice still takes place on occasion because of a persistent belief in witchcraft and the occult.

Two guys were reportedly detained earlier this month for the murder of a 6-year-old child in the nation’s capital, New Delhi.

The construction workers told the authorities that they killed the youngster as a sacrifice to the Hindu deity Shiva so that they may become wealthy.