Nagpur: A five-year-old girl was allegedly beaten to death during "black magic", a senior police officer said on Monday.
The death occurred on Saturday after the child’s father Siddharth Pralhad Chimne (45), who runs a local news channel on YouTube, went to a dargah in Takalghat area with his wife and two daughters, aged 5 and 16, on Guru Purnima last month.
The man had allegedly suspected behavioural changes in his younger daughter since then. She would wake up at night and utter Sanskrit shlokas.
They met a priest with the help of an aunt, Priya Amar Bansod. The former convinced the parents to believe that their daughter was possessed by evil forces.
Accordingly, certain rituals were performed on his instructions on Friday night, during which the girl was tortured. The macabre scenes were shot on video, which the police seized.
During the rituals, the three accused allegedly slapped and thrashed the child, following which she fell collapsed.
The accused took the child to a dargah on the morning of Saturday. They later shifted her to the Government Medical College and Hospital and ran away from there, said the official.
A security guard at the hospital grew suspicious and captured a picture of their car on his mobile phone.
Doctors at the hospital later declared the girl dead and alerted the police, who identified the accused on the basis of the vehicle registration number.
The child’s father, Siddharth, mother Ranjana (42), aunt Priya Bansod (35) and priest Shankar Namdev Bambode (50) have been arrested, the official added. (UNI)
