Ashes and bones of woman go missing from crematorium; cops launch probe

Nagpur, Nov 5 (PTI) The mysterious disappearance of the ashes and bones of a 23-year-old woman from a crematorium in Nagpur district of Maharashtra has left villagers and police baffled amid suspicion of a witchcraft ritual.

The incident occurred in the limits of Umred police station, an official said on Wednesday.

A 23-year-old woman from Umred died due to illness on Monday morning. After the postmortem, the body was handed over to the family, and the last rites were performed around 1 pm at the crematorium near Bhiwapur Y-Point in Umred, police said.

When relatives of the deceased visited the crematorium site on Tuesday morning, they were shocked to find that the ashes and bones had disappeared, police said.

The family of the deceased suspects that someone took away the ashes and bones for performing witchcraft or black magic.

Umred Police registered a case against an unidentified person under the Maharashtra Human Sacrifice and Other Inhuman and Unholy Practices and Witchcraft (Prevention and Eradication) Act, 2013, and section 301 (trespassing on burial places, offering indignity to corpses, and causing disturbances during funeral ceremonies) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita.

"We have launched an investigation. We are not ruling out the angle of witchcraft. The sections applied suggest that some suspicious and illegal acts may have taken place. We will check CCTV footage, local movements, and people who visited the crematorium," an official said. PTI COR NSK