Guwahati, April 4: After four years of continuous search in three states, Assam police have arrested 5 people in pursuit of the 2019 Kamakhya human sacrifice case.
They has been identified as: Mata Prasad Pandey alias Mateswar Giri (50), Suresh Paswan (56), Pradeep Pathak (52) alias Dinesh alias Raju, Kanu Acharjee alias Kanu Tantrik (62) and Bhaiyaram Maoriya (60) alias Raju Baba.
According to police, Mata Prasad was arrested from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh while Pradeep Pathak was arrested from Mathura, Uttar Pradesh and rest of them were arrested from Bhootnath, Guwahati.
Police had found one beheaded body of an unknown female person at Kamakhya near Joy Durga Mandir in June 2019. “Upon arrival at the place of occurrence, police had found that the female body covered with a blanket was lying at the staircase of Joy Durga Mandir and the head of the deceased was missing,” said a police official.
“In this connection, a Suo-moto case was registered vide Jalukbari police station case No. 919/2019 u/s 120B/302/201 IPC and investigation taken up. As the identity of the deceased was unknown, therefore, no further clue could be found during the initial stage. On July 28, 2019, the son of the victim, namely Suresh Shaw of Tatipara (Borkandaspara), PS-Dankuni, Hooghly, West Bengal came to Jalukbari police station after he came to know from the media about the news of recovery of headless body of a woman and, based on wearing apparels and other identification marks like tattoo etc. on the body of the victim, identified the victim as his mother Santi Shaw (64) who came to Kamakhya on the occasion of Ambubachi Mela in the month of June, 2019 and had been missing since then,” he informed.
However, apart from identification of the deceased, no further clue/evidence could be gathered during the investigation carried out then and the case pending for identification of the accused persons involved in the crime.
“This case was recently reviewed and a Special team was entrusted to carry out further investigation to identify the accused involved in the offence. The special team analysed technical evidences collected earlier and based on the clues gathered went to Cooch Behar, West Bengal and carried out a search in the house of one Kailash Barman on March 18, and could recover the victim’s mobile handset and belongings like clothes, ID proof (Aadhar card) etc. On examination of Kailash Barman, it came to light that those belongings were left at their home in a bag by one Baba Ji by the name Mata Prasad Pandey, resident of Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh in the month of June, 2019. As stated by Kailash Barman, Mata Prasad Pandey used to regularly visit their village during the month of June-July since 7-8 years,” he said.
“In the year 2019 the said Babaji visited their house and left those belongings of the victim stating that the bag had his belongings which he would collect later,” he added.
Police successfully arrested Mata Prasad Pandey alias Mateswari Giri from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh on March 25, 2023 and after interrogation it came to light that in the intervening night of June 18 and 19, 2019 a puja was held in Bhootnath which they named as Kapali/Kaal Bhairav/Kali Puja where around 12 persons took part which included the victim too. After that they went to Kamakhya and later beheaded the head of the victim, informed the police official.
