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5 held for killing 2 sex workers in ‘human sacrifice’: MP Police
Police said the accused have been identified as Bantu Bhadoria (40), his wife Mamta Bhadoria (36), his sister Meera Rajawat (45), her live-in partner Neeraj Parmar (35), all residents of Gwalior, and occultist Girvar Yadav (62) from Datia.
Five people, including a couple and an occultist, have been arrested for allegedly killing two sex workers in human sacrifice rituals in the past 10 days in Gwalior and Morena districts of Madhya Pradesh, police said on Saturday.
Police said the accused have been identified as Bantu Bhadoria (40), his wife Mamta Bhadoria (36), his sister Meera Rajawat (45), her live-in partner Neeraj Parmar (35), all residents of Gwalior, and occultist Girvar Yadav (62) from Datia.
According to the police, Bantu and Mamta got married 17 years ago and have been trying for a baby. But Mamta failed to conceive and so the couple decided to approach an occultist, police said.
Gwalior superintendent of police Amit Sanghi said, “Girvar Yadav asked the couple to sacrifice a human. Bantu discussed it with Meera and Neeraj. They made a plan of killing an orphan. Neeraj told the couple that he saw in a Bollywood movie a man kills a sex worker and doesn’t get arrested as nobody files any complaint of her missing.”
Bantu and Neeraj first killed a sex worker in Sarai Chola area of Morena on the intervening night of October 13 and 14, the SP added.
“They showed the body to Yadav, who he rejected it, saying the woman was not killed properly and had injury marks on the body. He asked for another body. Neeraj then hired another sex worker on October 20. He took her to Bantu’s house in Purani Chhawni area, where they killed her by strangulating,” said the SP.
The double murder first came to light after the body of a 23-year-old sex worker was found near the Indian Institute of Information and Management Technology (IIITM) on Thursday.
“When police investigated, the woman was identified as a resident of Hazira area. Tracing the call details and CCTV footage, police nabbed Neeraj Parmar. During the interrogation, he confessed to the crime,” said the senior police officer.
“Neeraj told us that after killing the woman, he along with and Meera were taking the body of the second woman to Yadav’s house on a bike, when the body fell down near IIITM,” the SP said, adding that scared of getting caught, the two fled.
Police got the information of the murder of 25-year-old woman from Morena while checking the call details of the woman, who was killed in Gwalior. The call details revealed that Neeraj contacted the woman with a number registered in the name of another woman, police said.
“When police tried to trace the woman, they found that she was a sex worker from Morena and missing since the past 10 days. When they interrogated Neeraj, they found that she was also killed by them for the ritual,” said the police officer.
Based on Neeraj’s confession, police arrested the five accused on Friday and booked them under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Bantu and Neeraj have been sent on police remand for three days.
Police said Bantu used to drive a school bus, but lost his job during the Covid-19 pandemic, while his wife is a house maker. Meera, who is a divorcee, lives with Neeraj, a property broker.
Police said they are interrogating Yadav to find out if he had asked others for similar acts before. Further probe is on, police said.
