Man Kidnaps, Slits Throat Of 8-Year-Old As Sacrificial Ritual For Himself 'To Get Well'

A man in India has been arrested for kidnapping and murdering an 8-year-old boy from his village as a human sacrifice, police said.

The 21-year-old accused, identified as Lato Das from a village in Jamui, in the state of Bihar, was arrested Wednesday. During the police interrogation, Das is said to have confessed that he killed the child as a sacrificial ritual for himself “to get well soon,” News 18 reported.

According to police, the boy went missing from his home Tuesday afternoon. His family members lodged a complaint after their search efforts were in vain.

Police took Das, the victim's neighbor, into custody after they got information that the boy was last seen with him. The man admitted that he took the boy on his bike to a hill nearby the village and made him unconscious by covering his mouth. He then reportedly took a knife and slit the boy's throat.

Das told police he had a dream that he will “get well” if he sacrificed the boy's life. After the man confessed to the crime, he was arrested and police discovered the body of the boy from the hill. Police also recovered the knife that Das used in the murder, a local news outlet News 20 reported.

"A 21-year-old man murdered an 8-year-old boy due to superstition," Superintendent of Police, Pramod Kumar Mandal said, according to News 18. The family of the victim is in distress after the young boy's death and the villagers are shocked by the incident.

In June, a 19-year-old boy from Wembley, northwest London, was on a double murder trial following the stabbing deaths of his elder sisters. The teen reportedly committed the crime in a sacrificial deal with the demon to win a lottery.

The accused, Danyal Hussein, made a “handwritten agreement with the demon” that police later recovered. The agreement, signed by the teen in blood, indicated his intentions to sacrifice six women every six months in exchange for winning a jackpot. Police also got CCTV footage and evidence of Hussein purchasing several lottery tickets after his siblings' deaths.

Hussein was charged with two counts of murder and one count on possession of an offensive weapon.