BANGALORE: Animal rights activists will smell blood if they know Karnataka Chief minister D V Sadananda Gowda fervently endorses cock sacrifices. Last week, family priests sacrificed roosters at the two-day Bhoota Kola—an occult ceremony meant to held appease dissatisfied spirits—at the chief minister’s family house at Devaragunda, Sullia district, Karnataka. Sorcerers belonging to the Kuttikol Kavenadan family from Kerala carried out the bloody ritual.
According to sources, Gowda family members who lived in Devaragunda and Bellipady also sacrificed as many as 20 of these birds. The chief minister spent the whole day at the ritual site, watching the rituals being carried out. Gowda’s brother D V Shivaram said the offering of roosters for sacrifice was an annual ritual held to appease evil spirits. “The belief is that the Ganas (mythical dark spirits that are supposedly part of the retinue of the gods) can be made happy only with rooster’s blood.”
Standing in front of the shrine to the gods during the Bhoota Kola, Gowda declared, “I have immense belief in these daivas (spirits)”. Gowda recalled he had grown frail and weak in 2008 because of illnesses but he had participated in the Bhoota Kola and it proved greatly beneficial to him. The relationship between the Kuttikol Kavenadan family and the Gowdas spans well over 150 years.