Guwahati, Dec. 13: Six members of a family, including four minors, were brutally murdered at Jogdol village in Sonapur on the outskirts of the capital city today, police said.

Sensation prevailed in the area after the police recovered the bodies, including the headless remains of two boys, fuelling speculations that the killers might have beheaded them and taken away their severed heads for some secret occult practice.

The victims have been identified as Harakanta Doley, 45, his wife Sapna, 40, their daughters Sabita, 12, and Punita, 11, son Bhimraj, also known as Atul, 9, and Harakanta’s six-year-old nephew Tukul, the police said.

The bodies of Atul and Tukul were found decapitated.

Harakanta’s sister-in-law Tuleswari Doley, who lives in an adjacent house, found that the family members had not woken up till 7am after none opened the door following repeated knocking. She said that they normally wake up early in the morning. As there were no signs of any family member coming out of the room, Tuleswari pushed the door and was horrified to see the bloodstained bodies lying on the floor of the mud-walled thatched-roof house.

Tuleswari raised an alarm following which the relatives and neighbours of the victims gathered around the site. They immediately informed the Sonapur police outpost about the incident.

After preliminary investigation, the police ruled out the murder-for-gain theory, as Harakanta was a daily-wage earner and financially weak, and focussed on angles like revenge (because of some personal animosity) and occult practice.

“It could be a case of human sacrifice for some bizarre ritual or black magic as yesterday was a moonless night as well as a Saturday. We want prompt police action so that the culprits are arrested,” Bhogeswar Teron, a local resident and president of the Karbi Students Union, said.

Harakanta’s younger brother Nirmal said he was clueless about the motive and the identity of the killers.

“He was a simple and gullible man and we are not aware of his animosity towards anybody,” Nirmal said about his elder brother.

The victims bore multiple injuries, which indicate that they were hacked with sharp weapons and also bludgeoned on their heads with blunt objects. However, no weapon was recovered from the crime scene. Forensic and fingerprint experts visited the site and searched for clues.

The police, who also took the help of a sniffer dog, suspect that the killers might have escaped in a vehicle, which was parked on National Highway 37, which is just about 500 metres away from the site of the incident.

Social welfare minister and local MLA Akon Bora and senior police officials, including senior superintendent of police (city) P.C. Saloi, have visited the spot.

“The motive behind the murders is not known yet. We are investigating every possible angle but yet to make any breakthrough,” Saloi said, adding that nobody has been arrested so far.

“It was a shocking incident. We have not seen such a gruesome incident for long after five members of a family was killed at nearby Chagoligaon around 25 to 30 years ago,” village headman Ratan Kathar said.

The police have registered a case in this connection at Sonapur police outpost and sent the bodies to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital for autopsy.