Iti’s parents at their house on Friday. Picture by Surajit Roy

Malda, Feb. 8: The discovery of a head severed from the body of an 18-month-old girl in a village field has puzzled police. The head of Iti Mondal was found at Bholai Attaramtola under Kaliachak police station jurisdiction on Wednesday. The torso of the girl is yet to be traced.

What the father of the baby told the police was that Iti had died from cold and cough on Tuesday and her body was buried on the bank of the Ganga, 2km away from their house.

A senior police officer said had dogs or foxes dug the body out of the burial mound and dragged it to the field, which was 2km away, there should have been marks of that nature on the head. It appears that someone had severed the head from the torso in one stroke using a sharp weapon.

The body part, which had initially been sent to Malda District Hospital morgue, was later sent to North Bengal Medical College Hospital in Siliguri for post-mortem.

Some villagers do not rule out the sorcery angle to the girl’s death. They say the girl was sacrificed at the altar of a Kali temple. Paraphrasing the villagers’ version, the pradhan of the local panchayat, Lakshmi Mondal, said the girl had been sacrificed by the parents to save their two other children.

The pradhan said Mondal’s family had been suffering from various diseases. She added there had been Kali puja in the village on the night before the head was found. Apart from Iti, Mondal has a son and a daughter.

District superintendent of police Satyajit Banerjee said the police were waiting for the post-mortem report. He added that the family was under watch.