Cannibalism in India

The usually reliable Times of India reported on this interesting if rather sick story this week:

ROHTAK: In a gut-wrenching case, four persons in Palwal town were reportedly caught feeding on a partially-cremated human body on Thursday night.

According to sources, horrified by what he saw in the night, a watchman of the cremation ground raised an alarm. Soon a crowd gathered and thrashed the cannibals before handing them over to the police.

The police on Friday booked Santram, a municipality worker, his son Sunil, Ramesh and Kamal under various sections (trespassing on burial places with the intention of wounding feelings of any person, insulting religion, defiling a place of worship with intent to insult religion of any class and wanton provocation. The accused were produced before a local court, which sent them to police remand for five days.

The police said Chhawender Singh had left the cremation ground at Alawalpur road after the funeral rites of his mother. He paid some money to a boy, Sunil, and asked him to take care of the pyre that was still burning. Sources said late in the night, Santram, his son and two others arrived at the cremation ground and started drinking.

Ajay, the watchman, noticed that one of them had pulled a half-burnt body off the pyre. Then what he saw was bizarre: the men had started eating parts of the body. Ajay and his mother then ran out to inform cremation ground management committee member Krishan Kumar Bhutani about the incident. Soon, a crowd gathered at the scene and beat up the accused. It was after the arrival of cremation ground committee members that the four were handed over to the police.