Two men have been arrested in central India for allegedly killing a 7-year-old girl and cutting out her liver in a ritual sacrifice to ensure a better harvest, police said Monday.
Lalita Tati disappeared in October and her dismembered remains were found a week later, Rajendra Narayan Das, a senior police officer in the Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh state, told The Associated Press.
Police arrested two men, both poor farmers, last week and they told police they killed the girl to appease their gods and get a better harvest, Das said.
Tati was walking home after watching television at a neighbor's house when she was kidnapped, Das said. The two men confessed to cutting her open and removing her liver as an offering.
Das said the police had gathered enough evidence, apart from the confessions, to charge the two with murder. They would face life in prison or even the death sentence if convicted.
The men were described as "tribals," a term referring to the region's indigenous people, most of whom remain mired in poverty and illiteracy.
Human sacrifices are rare in India but get prominent attention every few years. A deep belief in traditional healers, or witch doctors, is common in mostly tribal Chhattisgarh.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.


In before the unavoidable Christian bashing, Obama blaming, Bush blaming, partisan hackery that will somehow magically be divined from this story.
Eh, what's up doc?,,,, You can put away your magic wand now for bringing it up in the fist place
This is a direct result of the caste system,ie keeping people ignorant,not allowing them to evolve,of course these men are ultimately responsible for their actions,but they(Indain society) need to use this as a wake up call,to allow others to evolve out of the poverty,and become better educated.
Many innocents die because of the caste system to this day. Hey India Evolve already,the blood of this girl is on your societies hands,and how you keep your people down.ie in their place.Ignorance kills.
I hope that system keeps a wide buffer around the nukes.
Many innocents have died because ignorance and religion all over the world through thousands of years.
perhaps we could try that in the US. I mean breaking the system that keeps people poor and ignorant.
@ mj; We have evolved.I will admit that social welfare can be cyclonic,but noone is forced to stay at that level,nor denied the right to a higher education,with others that may be more prosperous than they.
If this was written today,men would say people, because we have evolved,where as India has not in this sense.
Coral Taxi Post 1.2 In this, the New Year, perhaps you and many others will not post until you know what in the hell you are talking about. You post of "ignorance," and yet your words and thoughts reek of the same yet boasted with "authority."
I'm so glad we outsource so many jobs to India.
'Social welfare' can be like a violent tropical storm? I mean, you did use the word cyclonic. Or did you mean it's like a low pressure atmosphere?
As for the U.S. being 'evolved'. . . ritualistic killings take place here every day. They are, for one thing, an inherent part of gang life.
Here's a parallel: the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith's capitalism (the invisible God of the right wing, trickle-down 1% caste) is demanding the sacrifice of the lives (livelihoods, livers) of the working caste in America. When former middle class (caste) families lose their homes to foreclosure, their jobs to "downsizing", can no longer afford health care or higher education, and have to be fed on charity (food pantries/food stamps), are we not reduced to a barbaric set of conditions? Is it not true that the myth of a meritocracy has been stripped away: now it is who you know, and who you are related to, not your character or your work ethic that determine success. I despair of this gun-toting, "God-fearing", greedy, hate-filled, bigoted "moral majority" that wants to run the country through the religious right. Go OWS, Obama 2012. Give Obama a secure second term with a compliant congress, and let's right the ship of state, and show ourselves that we are truly civilized.
So let me get this right Madeline. You're using the murder, mutilation and human sacrifice of a 7 year old girl in India to promote your political beliefs and agenda there in the good old Independent States of America (sic). You are a special event Madam. In my lifetime, living above your country in the Great White North, I have never seen such a dichotomy amongst the American people. The divisive politics are eating the country alive and if continued may result in the demise of America as the world knows it.
Madeline, you need to clean and refit your personal filter. The hijacking of this tragic event to further your political agenda is not only distasteful, it shows you to be morally bereft as well.
@mrcool;
And your point is sir? What am I ignorant about? Blanket statements annoy me.
It is a completely logical assumption that if you hold a certain group of people down in a society,that eventually someone is going to get hurt,or killed as a direct result of it.(animosity,ignorance,prejudice,breeds violence) This could not be truer in this case.Im not saying other countries have not been guilty of it,I am saying it is time for them(India) to allow the lower class,the same opportunities afforded to those born to the more priviliged. Evolve already.
I am not trying to insult,more than express my disgust that these type of things happen because others think their lives are more valuable than others. Get it?
@ katze;
Yes sir,going in circles,stuck in the same pattern over and over,you understand my meaning you are splitting hairs. Very funny though,I could have used a better analogy,but I think my point is understood.
Actually, I think it shifts between the two -- at times a violent storm and at times the doldrums. *(:-)
What I find repugnant is a 300+year old, drug dependent society, that promotes FREEDOMS that have spread AIDS around the world. Just these two things have KILLED MILLIONS, in just the last thirty years. Not counting the Industrial War Machine that has dropped bomblets and Agent Orange, that are still KILLING and injuring THOUSANDS every year, or using TWO - Atomic Bombs, that ONLY the USA has ever deployed against another country.
Yet YOU, demigod a society that has existed for over 5,000+years. India may have a lot of IGNORANCE and unjust societal problems. But the USA has KILLED and is KILLING more innocents that their society.
Well said Ezee
Kudo's Ezee.
Madeline I hope you are not really that hopelessly blind that you cannot get past your Obama worship to see the tragedy of this story. If so please log off immediatly, Turn off the TV, Turn off the radio, head for a quiet place where nobody will bother you and do some self examination.
As for you AC I don't see much hope for you at all. There is no way that I can see anyone with your attitude towards your country being a citizen of this country. If we have fallen that low as a people that anybody would want to read that bs you are putting out then it's time we all turn off the internet and TV and a join madeline on her little vacation.
How, just how are you completely idiotic "people" dragging all this non-related crap into this story?
Did the liberals convince the men to kill the girl so that they can socialize India's health care system? Did a priest tell them that the only way to get into Heaven was to kill the girl? Did Obama tell them to kill her so that he can start criticizing India, accusing them of holding terrorists?
You guys are completely hopeless.
Let's blame the Pope. Let's blame our governments. Let's blame the Crusades. Let's blame C. Anthony. Let's blame Obama. Hell, let's blame everybody and anyone that comes to mind.
@AC ROBERTSON - Do you live in the United States of America ? I bet you do, I bet you enjoy the freedoms of this society that you are so quick to bash. Regardless of our problems, differences in opinions between liberals and conservatives, regardless of where our economy is today... this is still the greatest nation on the face of this planet. AC Robertson, why dont you go to India, maybe they will sacrafice you to the god of stupidity.
Actually the same children sacrifice can be found in the old testiment. The demonic god called Bael. They did the exact same thing, to put there children into fire baskets, to recieve a better harvest, or more cattle to there flock. This is pure demonic rituals. They would even look at the body, and the bones, after being burned to death. And make statements to in effect the orientation of how the childs body is. To say how and where there farm will increase! This is completely witchcraft. Those two men will have to answer to God of Heaven and Earh somebody. And I do not believe they will recieve a reward form the King of Kings! More than likely will burn in Hell for eternity.
Yep, just as I called it.
The men were described as "tribals," a term referring to the region's indigenous people, most of whom remain mired in poverty and illiteracy.
Does Oprah know about this? Maybe she should start a school there?
Unbelieveable that we have animals on this earth that would do something like this.
Animals huh. They are just doing what their traditions tell them. It doesn't justify the girl's death but it gives it context.
If she does start a school there she better do it by long distance.
If she showed up there those dudes would probably say ooohh I bet that woman has a BIG liver!
Joyce - These are very unsophisticated uneducated people. In the back of their minds they have no explanation for bad weather which threatens their survival if the crop season is poor. They very much dread the coming season and have no way to predict it. Out of this dread, the mind finds a way to blame oneself for the dread one feels. How to repay this guilt and forestall punishment? The mind invents an authority essence, so that by punishing oneself in front of the god authority (sometimes an altar is made for this), they can absolve the guilt they given themselves (based on dread of a bad season). Reason says then the imaginary god will grant them forgiveness and lift the bad spell over their lives which threatens their crops. By punishing themselves, or someone else, or sacrificing someone else, they gain a sense of relief and restore certainty that they have done all they could have to save themselves from the dreaded bad season and insure a good growing season instead. Of course they aren't consciously aware of how their mind is thinking, they feel impulses to do certain acts and think they are being directed by god to do such immoral things.
Here we call them rednecks.
Joyce-4263422:
These people were taught one way, and act accordingly. They are not animals. They just haven't been educated properly, which you even made the effort to point out. Funny you couldn't connect the dots...
Joyce--When I watch the news, it would seem we have plenty of "animals" here too, and a good number of them can read and write and do not have "tribal customs" as an excuse. Granted, what these people did is heinous and hopefully the Indian legal system will make clear that tribal or not, this kind of thing is not tolerated, but civilization does not come overnight and sometimes I wonder how civilized WE really are.
The 1st poster was right! Here comes all the American bashing, religion bashing, etc because a couple of Indians did something terrible in India. Don't justify it or rationalize it!!! That poor girl! And, rednecks do that? Come on, Get Real!
i thought we call them tea partyers here
This is why we (USA) needs to become isolated from all the 3rd world hell holes out there.
And yes it was obamas fault &)
Dude,,, No, this is an example of an attack on freedoms & liberties.... A Ron Paul libertarian example of people's rights & too much government control
What right does government have to tell you you can't do religious sacrifices?
This is why the US needs to use some of its wealth to educate the poor, at home and abroad. 'Socialism' has its place right along with capitalism. Neither works well alone. We have laws to try to prohibit extremes in any direction.
This is just another sad story in a world where some people do terrible things, for religion, for money, for politics, for ideology, and most frighteningly, because they just enjoy it.
This seems clearly a case of religion-inspired horror. But tomorrow somebody will do something just a terrible for a different reason.
We need to separate the US from them alright, by not letting the right send them all our jobs!!!
Newsvine is starting to make me feel kind of sick.
First of all many prayers to her family. I hope they are able to eventually find peace and i hope her death isn't in vain. I hope these sick, disgusting animals that did this and every single person that saw this and did nothing suffers horribly! sick sick sick. Related it is time India took a stand and started protecting their women. India if you want to join the 21st century and be part of the modern world, then you need to embrace and harness the other half of your brain power. No country can become great by cutting off half of their people ( women) . Women need to inherit property the same as men and be embraced as a work force. Womens health care including birth-control should be available to all castes of people at reasonable costs ( and get rid of the stupid backward caste system while your at it)
The president of India is a woman.
They are freaks I tell you!! FREAKS!!
its unthinkable that such prehistoric beings are still alive today!
Is it so 'unthinkable.' It is wrong. Period. BUT, we practice monogamy or actually serial polygamy / we shudder to think of Rome and Greece and other cultures who killed off handicapped infants, yet we have abortion, which has killed many more than all the wars put together in just under 40 years / we are aghast and tell other countries to not violate human rights as folks protest and yet I wonder what LA, Chicago, NYC, et. al. would/will do in the face of violent, destructive protests.
Just remember, many things depends on perspective. With all of this said, it is not unthinkable when I realize the rapists who are freed, the pedophiles who are released to destroy more lives, the money that is wasted on capital punishment appeal after appeal, the crimes of the politicians in being the most corrupt of all generations via lobbyists, under the scope pay-backs, and the latest articles about how members of CONGRESS are now RICHER than ever before during this hard economical time period. Perspective / Perspective / Perspective: One more: Putin is so terrible for the election fixing. What about Bush/Gore episode? What about the criminal ACORN group and Obama? What about Clinton taking money from the Chinese? What about the Nazi-war criminal SOROS 'company' being in charge of the electronic vote counting machines that will be used in the next Presidential election. Please all ostriches get your heads out of the sand....
Just goes to show ya, if one God is alive,,,, Then they all must be
3rd world country full of ignorant backwards inbred idiots. Everytime I have to talk to one of these idiots at a call center I want to tell them to go to hell and hang up.
PR,,, You woun't get your technical problems solved that way amigo...
I don't like 3rd world countries either, which is why I strongly oppose right wing "Smaller Government" agendas
PR, that's racist, inflammatory, and also irrational. Speaking of being backwards, have you traveled into Texas or Florida much?
This is not any worse than the killing of Jorelys Rivera in Canton, GA (as an example). See these statistics on how American crime is significantly more than India:
American companies have call centers in India for a reason - profits and in turn savings for customers. This sacrifice is unfortunate and there is a big task ahead to continue to bring change in lives.
... so, did it work ?
Probably not,,, Which seriously puts religion on hold doesn't it? --- Harvest was why people created Gods
And the fact that early man could not rationalize the death of a loved one. Hence the idea of life after death and a greater beyond.
It's amazing that in the 21st century, there are STILL people out there with 15th century beliefs.
Well, as a confirmed Druid, we gave up virgin sacrifice many years ago because they were too hard to find.
+100000
I would have thought a TRUE sacrifice in India would have to be a boy child since over one million babies and young girls die every year for no reason but that they are a girl. Religion, all religions seem to be control fanatics and in all of them women seem to be nothing more than property and breeders, YOU can have it just don’t put into power.
Sad,,,, She was the last virgin left on the planet
@ Jim37; Me thinks you had to much coffee today sir.lol
Religion is not the problem. It's the people in power. All religions that have existed for any length of time have had principles of peace, tolerance and acceptance. On the contrary people that seek power do so for personal glory, wealth and control of others. This happens in both religious organizations as well as secular.
In this instance, this happened because of a lack of proper education in a poverty stricken area. Instead, superstition ruled instead of reason. I wish I could say I was surprised by this, but I know human nature all too well. Further and unrelated to your comments, executing them will neither solve the problem nor prevent it from happening in the future.
Although I hate religion, I don't think someone is justified blaming religion or caste system in India for this particular incident. This has to do with tribal people, who were never integrated into mainstream society. I feel sorry for the little girl and her family
I'm beyond words over this.....
Remove them from our gene pool NOW! barbarians and faithless subhumans.
Faithless? How in the world can you call them faithless? They committed a ritual sacrifice to appease their gods, AN ACT OF FAITH! For F**K's sake! Genius has it's limits but ignorance knows no bounds.
Excuse me but I think faith was what caused the death of this child..She was killed for religious favor from whatever god these believers invoked.
Heard of satire much?
Yes I have, and that wasn't it.
I can't believe I am reading this kind of news. I think the two farmers should be sacrificed as well, just to ensure a really good harvest.
This is interesting.... Notice how many people here demand government control over religious practices & liberties?
We all do,, dare we hope this unity spreads?
Jim, I enjoy the way you think. You make me smile.
Absolutely ... when it allows one person to harm another person.
Like harming them by restricting their freedom of choice of marital partner, or by their right to choose what to do with their body ie: abortion, even in the case of rape, incest, or risk of death?
The more power Religion is given the more of this kind of stupidity we will see in one way or the other. In the end women will have no more value than cows. It is that way NOW in many places and in India women have less value than cows. We can wake up and do better by denying that power to Religions or we can join them. Most women will fight.
I kind of hope the region has a bad harvest this year.
Otherwise they're going to think this actually works, and other "tribals" will do it again next year.
Sad to say that this kind of reasoning doesn't happen...it's more like:
a) if the harvest fails, the sacrifice was insufficient, so next year offer up two livers and one beating heart.
b) If the harvest is average, the sacrifice was only just ok, so next year...ditto
c) If the harvest is great, the sacrifice was good, so next year show our gratitude and ensure a good harvest by...well, you see where I'm going with this.
It's called faith.
The inhumanity of the human race towards each other never ceases to turn my stomach. That poor little girl
Let's hope people think about these things during the 2012 election cycle --- OBAMA/BIDEN 2012
So you're saying if the're re-elected they'll reduce the Indian liver harvesting?
This act is philosophically similar(and as effective) as Rick Perry calling 25,000 tribals(fundamentalist Texans) into a football stadium to pray to their god for rain.
Perry's tribe screwed it up, Didn't Texas start burning soon after his minion's plea?
Whoops! wrong god! should have gone with Zeus, or maybe Posiedon?
From THEIR standpoint, that WAS a brilliant tactic. You know obviously that it was going to rain SOONER OR LATER. And when it did, Perry could claim that the prayers worked. Just like in this story, if anything grows this year, they'll believe the sacrifice worked. They call it religion, we call it ignorance. But there are stupid people everywhere who fall for it.
poor child lost her life for no fault of her, india needs to reset her priorities towards education and health rather than wars and weapons. This was how it was among the pagan arabs, most female babies were buried alive,before the time of the prophet mohammed.
"needs to reset her priorities towards education and health rather than wars and weapons"
You sure you want to localize that fine advice to just India? I'm thinking, apply it closer to home,,,
they should have gotten jobs at a USA companies call centres..
Just SO wrong
And India enjoys "most favored nation" status with the US . . . For the life of me, I don't understand why. With things like this going on, you have to wonder?
Hey, although the crime wasn't prevented, at least the perpetrators were arrested. Many countries would not prosecute religion based crimes (Pakistan and Afghanistan come to mind). India is, at least, trying to drag its tribes out of the 15th century.
How come so few of these "rituals" involve the suicide of the practitioner. I'm certain the gods would be just as pleased if they killed themselves for the luck of the harvest. We would, I know that for certain.
This is exactly why God will soon step in and destroy all false religion. People don't see the importance of that until things like this happen. (Psalms 83:18; Isaiah 2:18-21)
strawberries.... All religions are "false" ---- Harvest is why Man created Gods in the 1st place
You seem to think they are football teams.... Get a clue
There's no such thing as a "true religion", and your gods do not exist (that's the HT* "Hairy Thunderer" and the GT** "three in one plus adversary").
*Hebrew Testament
**Greek Testament
God will step in and destroy all false religions? Don't hold your breath. Religion is what causes this insane behavior.