Lucknow, Oct. 5: In a bizarre incident of human sacrifice, a seven-year-old boy was beheaded by his uncle and aunt at Baba Hardev temple in Hardoi district, barely 90 km from the State capital.

The incident that took place on Tuesday night was discovered two days later when the police found a headless body of a young boy floating in a pond near the temple.

Krishna Murari, a small time farmer in the neighbouring Andauyya village in Manjhaula police circle whose son Anil had been reported missing, recognised the body as being that of his son.

According to reports appearing in the local newspapers, Krishna Murari also told the local police that his elder brother Rajendra and the latter’s wife Leela had been visiting a local tantrik since they did not have a child.

He said he suspected that his brother and sister-in-law along with one Shambhu had kidnapped Anil and had beheaded him as an offering to the local deity. Rajendra and Leela have been arrested and are being interrogated.

According to police sources, the couple reportedly kidnapped anil while the latter was sleeping outside his house. The boy was then taken to the baba Hardev temple, forced to have a bath and was then beheaded before the temple deity.

The couple applied ‘tilak’ on the deity with his blood and offering the head of the boy to the deity. The beheaded body was later thrown into the nearby pond. The spade that was used to chop off the boy’s head was also recovered later from the pond.

While the police believes that the boy was killed by his uncle and aunt who were yearning for a child, a section of the villagers insist that human sacrifice had been made to save the residents of the village from infectious diseases that had claimed several lives in the past few months.

The residents claim that patients suffering from this mysterious disease had been miraculously cured after the boy’s head was offered to Baba Hardev at the temple.

Incidentally, the head of the boy offered to the local deity has not yet been recovered by the police.