Two men booked for performing ‘sorcery’ at crematorium in MP’s Guna district

Guna, Mar 9 (PTI) The police have registered a case against two men after they were accused of performing witchcraft near a burning pyre at a crematorium in Madhya Pradesh’s Guna district, an official said on Saturday.

    The two were caught and taken to the police station by the relatives of a man whose body was on the pyre, the official said. A third person managed to flee from the spot.
    City Superintendent of Police (CSP) Shweta Gupta said that a 29-year-old man, identified as Ashwini Kewat, had died of a heart attack. His family then took the body to a crematorium in Gopalpura to consign it to flames.
    A few hours later, Kewat’s brother Nikhil and his friend Akash Raghuvanshi returned to the crematorium for some ritual but found three “tantriks performing sorcery” near the burning pyre, the police official said quoting the complaint.
    Various materials and ash from the pyre stuffed in a bottle were found at the spot, it was alleged.
    Nikhil and Akash caught two of the three men named Avinash Nath and Dilip Nath with the help of locals, while the third person, identified as Rahul Bairagi, fled from the spot, the official said.
    The police have registered a case under Indian Penal Code sections 297 (trespassing on burial places, etc.) and 34 (common intention) and further investigation is underway, she said.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)