It was on the night of February 28 that 10-year-old Ayesha, a resident of Magadi in Ramanagara district, went missing from her residence.
Three days later in the evening, her body was found in a gunny bag, abandoned two kilometers away from her home. The police recovered a lock of hair, turmeric and lemon from the bag, raising suspicion that Ayesha was a victim of human sacrifice.
Ayesha, a class 4 student and daughter of Muhammad Noorulla and Jameela Banu, left home around 8.30pm, reports S Bhuvaneshwari for The Hindu.
When she did not return home, the family launched a search operation to find her. With the night-long search not bearing any fruit, the family approached Magadi police the following day.
Ayesha’s body, which was found in a gunny bag with her throat slit and arms tied, was sent to Rajarajeshwari hospital for post-mortem. Reports say that her mouth was stuffed with plastic and cloth.
“My little girl has been killed for black magic or to get hidden treasure. The police did not try to trace the child as soon as the complaint was filed. If the police had acted quickly, she might not have been killed,” Ayesha’s aunt Reshma Taj, anganwadi worker, told The Hindu.
The New Indian Express reports that the police have formed a special investigating team to probe the case. The police are not reportedly ruling out the possibility of an insider's involvement in the crime, states the report.
"Preliminary investigations revealed that the family had a property dispute with relatives. We are looking into this. It appears that more than three people had kidnapped the girl and were involved in the crime," a police officer told TNIE.