Four years after finding a decapitated body in a Hindu temple in India, five people have been arrested for the beheading of Shanti Shaw, AFP reports.
Indian police arrested the five men on Wednesday as part of an investigation into the murder of 60-year-old Shanti Shaw. The headless body of the victim, Shanti Shaw, had been found in a Hindu temple four years earlier, according to AFP.
According to the first findings, she had been killed and beheaded with a machete in 2019, as reported by AFP. Nothing had made it possible to advance the investigation until last January. It was the identification of the victim that made it possible to open an investigation and arrest five suspects.
12 people involved
According to the report by AFP, between March 25 and April 1, five men were arrested. They are accused of having “premeditated the murder of this woman”, as indicated by the police commissioner of Guwahati (India), on Tuesday.
“A total of 12 people participated,” he said. There are therefore still seven suspects, still at large, to be arrested.
According to initial interrogations, the mastermind of the operation said he had killed the victim as part of a religious rite organized to commemorate the anniversary of the death of his brother, as reported by the commissioner for the AFP. “The accused apparently believed that this sacrifice would soothe the soul of the deceased.”