Indian police have arrested five men for the murder of a 60-year-old woman who was the victim of a ritual sacrifice. The headless body was discovered inside a Hindu temple four years ago.

64-year-old Sandy Shaw was murdered and beheaded with a machete in 2019 at a temple in the city of Guwahati in the northeastern Indian state of Assam.

Police had made no progress in solving the case until the body was finally identified last January, allowing a new investigation to be launched and suspects to be arrested.

Five men were arrested between March 25 and April 1 who “had premeditated the woman’s murder,” Guwahati police chief Diganda Barah told reporters last night.

“A total of 12 people participated,” he said. The police are looking for the seven accomplices of the arrested who are still on the run.

One of the five suspects arrested, 52-year-old Pradeep Pathak, allegedly orchestrated the victim’s sacrifice as part of a religious ceremony organized to mark the anniversary of his brother’s death, according to the police chief.

“The defendant apparently believed that this sacrifice would appease the soul of the deceased,” he explained.

The National Criminal Records Service has recorded 103 cases of human sacrifice in the country between 2014 and 2021, most of which were committed in the context of religious rituals.

These ceremonies are most often found in remote areas or where tribes reside and where the occult and magic are more common.

In 2022, two men were arrested for murdering a 6-year-old boy in New Delhi and explained to the police that they had sacrificed the child to the god Shiva in the hope that this Hindu deity would help them recover.