Hubballi: In what is strongly suspected to be a case of black magic by the villagers of Shirakol, two children were found dead in Navalgund taluk of Dharwad district on Tuesday. They were siblings and were found dead nearly one month after they had gone missing. The witchcraft materials found at the children’s house is said to have fuelled the suspicion among the residents aside from the fact that one of the victims was beheaded.
Nagaraj (13) and his younger brother Akash (9) were missing since September 24. The parents had filed a complaint at the Navalgund police station where, the police suspected that the children might have been kidnapped.
According to reports, the residents had found needles, lime and other pooja materials on the roof of their house.
Suresh Betasur, relative of the deceased children speaking to sources said, “We have searched for our children in adjacent villages after they went missing last month. But their bodies were found in a putrefied condition, adjacent to the Tupri Halla stream. It must be a case of murder, as they cannot drown in a stream that has almost completely dried up due to lack of rainfall. We are suspecting that our children were sacrificed for black magic by some miscreants.”
However, police Superintendent Vanshi Krishna, who visited the village, said that he will order a thorough probe though they have not found any proof of black magic. The forensic experts of Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) conducted the post-mortem in the presence of deputy commissioner P. Rajendra Cholan.
