Bhopal Bizarre

• In upscale Arera Colony, two sisters smash brother to death with a stone • In Aishbagh, woman beheads husband with help of her paramour • In Subhash Nagar, man and wife stab child to death • In Nishatpura, grandfather kills grandson • Army jawan strangles wife to death • Nephew beheads uncle and aunt while they were asleep • 7-year-old raped and murdered in police lines

Bhopal, June 27: One man was drowned in the Sindh last week by his son for being afflicted with leprosy and, now, the slaughter of another in the state, allegedly by his two daughters, for being “possessed” has rocked the region.

The macabre happenings of the night of June 18 came to light yesterday when family friends and neighbours lodged a complaint with police.

Yasmin, 22, and Taslima, 25, now in police custody and reported to be unsound, believed that “Iblis”, the great Satan, had possessed their father, said police.

If the account of the delirious sisters is anything to go by, they locked their ailing father, Yunus Mian, in a room, bound him up with chains and slaughtered him. The siblings then danced around his corpse.

Brothers Yusuf and Asif told the police that they had quietly buried their father’s body late in the night.

Yunus’s body was exhumed by the police today. Officials said the siblings’ claim of having drunk their father’s blood and eaten some of his organs would be confirmed during post-mortem, after which a case would be registered.

In lowbrow Nishatpura area’s Nawab Colony near Bhopal railway station, Yunus, a retired employee of the city municipal corporation, lived with his wife and seven children, including two sons and five daughters.

He had not been keeping well for some time and family members were of the opinion that he had been afflicted by some evil supernatural power — namely, Djinns.

In keeping with this line of thinking, Yunus was being administered occult treatment during the course of which it was suspected that the two sisters had also got “possessed”. The family, however, felt that while Yunus was under the spell of “Satan”, the girls were under the spell of “good Djinns”.

Yasmin and Taslima then convinced their terrified mother, sisters and brothers that Yunus would get a new lease of life if the “Satan” controlling him was killed.

The incident has stunned psychiatrists and social activists. City-based psychiatrist Ruma Bhattacharya said: “It appears to be an extreme case of insanity where the girls seem to have lost complete mental balance.”

Dr R.. Sahu, another psychiatrist, said the mentally disturbed girls seemed so removed from reality that they did not realise the gravity of the crime. He said in occult practises, cannibalism and human sacrifice are some of the gory and reprehensible acts.

According to neighbours Tahir Abbas and Mohammad Sabir, Yunus’s house was out of bounds for most of them.

“They were a strange set of people who seldom mixed with us. In the night, we would often hear strange sounds,” Sabir said, adding that he had never realised the gravity of the situation.

Abbas said he had instructed his wife and children not to mingle with them. “In fact, the entire neighbourhood used to maintain distance.”

There are others in the neighbourhood who suspect a property dispute involving Yunus’s sister, Aziza.

The girls, they say, were upset with their aunt, believing that she was casting spells on Yunus to influence him into gifting away his house. Once the girls were convinced that the spells had worked and their father was “possessed”, they decided to “set him free”.

Severely condemning the incident, the Muslim clergy has said the use of magic or spells for ill motives was strictly prohibited under Islamic law.

Maulana Junaid of Taj-ul-Masjid said poverty, superstition, gross ignorance and illiteracy was responsible for such shocking incidents.

While former state director-general of police Dinesh Jugran said he had never come across such a gory incident in his entire career, city superintendent of police Pawan Srivastva recalled an incident in Bastar in which a man, who had been beaten by a dog, killed and ate it up in rage.