India's Mystical Murders

“India's Mystical Murders
Kidnap-Slaying of Boy, 6, Puts Spotlight on Tantrism
By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 25, 2003; Page A22

DEHRI, India -- Madan and Murti Simaru were desperate for a son. So when nature failed to provide them one, the impoverished field hand and his wife did what many Indians do in times of need: They went to see a tantrik, practitioner of an ancient spiritual art -- tantrism -- that aims to harness supernatural powers for the resolution of worldly ills.

The outcome could hardly have been more shocking.

Acting on the instructions of the tantrik, the couple arranged for the kidnapping last month of a 6-year-old neighbor and then -- as the tantrik led them in chanting mantras -- mutilated and killed the child, Monu Kumar, on the bank of an irrigation canal, according to a police report. Murti Simaru allegedly completed the fertility ritual by washing herself in the child's blood.

"I was never expecting such a heinous crime against any child," said Narendra Kumar, the victim's 22-year-old father, who cultivates wheat and sugar cane near this quiet village roughly 100 miles north of New Delhi in the state of Uttar Pradesh. "This is not a matter of Monu only. These tantrik practices must be stopped."

Local authorities seem to agree. After a rash of similar killings in the area -- according to an unofficial tally in the English-language Hindustan Times, there have been 25 human sacrifices in western Uttar Pradesh in the last six months alone -- police have cracked down against tantriks, jailing four and forcing scores of others to close their businesses and pull their ads from local newspapers and television stations.

The killings and the stern official response have focused renewed attention on tantrism, an amalgam of mystical practices that grew out of Hinduism. But tantrism also has adherents among Buddhists and Muslims and, increasingly, in the West, where it is usually associated with techniques for prolonging sex. Often likened by its critics to witchcraft, tantrism has millions of followers across India, where it is thought to have originated between the 5th and 9th centuries A.D.”

Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 25, 2003; Page A22

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