KOCHI: The special investigation team (SIT) probing the Elanthoor human sacrifice case will file the first chargesheet before Ernakulam Judicial First Class Magistrate Court this week. The chargesheet of the case related to the murder of Padmam, a lottery seller in Kochi and a native of Tamil Nadu, will be filed first as the 90-day custody period of the three accused, prime accused Mohammed Shafi aka Rasheed, Bhagaval Singh, and his wife Laila, the second and third accused respectively, ends on January 8, sources said. The chargesheet in the murder of Roslin will be filed at Perumbavoor Judicial First Class Magistrate Court later.
The police are likely to cite the case as a ‘rarest of the rare’ before the court with the accused even allegedly consuming the flesh of the victims after murdering them as part of human sacrifice for financial gain. Accordingly, several charges including murder, abduction, and conspiracy are learnt to have been invoked against the accused. Based on the scientific and circumstantial evidence against the accused, the investigation team has invoked these charges.
The two chargesheets feature statements of 150 witnesses though the alleged killings had no eyewitnesses except the three accused themselves.
Earlier, the investigation team had decided to file two chargesheets in two separate cases registered by the Kadavanthra and Kalady police. The first victim, Roslin, went missing on June 6, and the second, Padmam, on September 26 last year and the missing cases were registered by the Kalady police and the Kadavanthra police on August 17 and September 27 respectively.
The three accused were arrested in October. An investigation into the missing complaint of Padmam exposed the gruesome ‘human sacrifice.’
Shafi, a habitual offender, convinced the other two accused that human sacrifice would help them achieve financial prosperity. For this Shafi trapped the two women and with the help of the other accused, and murdered them in a brutal manner at the house of Bhagaval Singh in Elanthoor in Pathanamthitta. According to the police, the victims were not only killed but their bodies were mutilated and chopped into pieces. The chopped body parts were exhumed from the premises of the couple’s house on October 11 last year.
