TENKASI: A case was registered against a few ‘samiyaadis’ on Saturday for carrying a human skull and allegedly eating human flesh during a festival in a temple in Kallurani village.
The ‘samiyaadis’ were booked based on a complaint filed by Village Administrative Officer after a video clip went viral on social media. The police detained a few ‘samiyaadis’ of Sakthi Pothi Sudalai Madasamy Temple (Kaattu Kovil) to know whose body they had exhumed to eat. “However, the police are clueless about when and where the body was exhumed as the samiyaadis keep on saying that they went into trance and were possessed by the temple deity when the incident took place. The police are also inquiring if the half-burnt human body was brought from any village crematorium,” they said.
In 2019, the ‘samiyaadis’ of the same Kaattu Kovil temple brought a human skull and a hand that were exhumed from an unknown place during the festival. The video of that act had also gone viral on social media. Sources said that the ‘samiyaadis’ of other Sudalai Madasamy temples in the district go for corpse-hunting to crematoria or burial grounds during the night-time festival as a religious ritual.
“But they don’t usually bring any human body parts when they return,” they said. However, Kallurani villagers claimed that they have seen ‘samiyaadis’ with human body parts in their village. When contacted, Superintendent of Police R Krishnaraj told TNIE that the police have also registered a case against the festival organisers who defied the prohibitory orders.