When two graves were found dug up in Bada Anwar cemetery in Madhya Pradesh’s Khandwa district earlier this week, it sparked outrage and protests. Then came another startling discovery: that a 50-year-old ex-convict who had spent over a decade in jail for his wife’s murder was allegedly desecrating the graves for an occult ritual to “increase his power”.
Madhya Pradesh Police have arrested Ayub Khan, a native of Mundwara village under Jawar police station area of Khandwa district, for allegedly desecrating some graves in the district. Khan had been spent 13 years in prison for the 2010 murder of his wife.
“After being released from jail, he began digging graves in the cemetery to perform occult rituals,” Superintendent of Police (Khandwa) Manoj Kumar Rai said. “To increase his powers, he would dig up graves and carry out rituals using nails and hair. The accused, Ayyub Khan, has so far dug up graves and tampered with corpses three times. Recently, on September 21, his act was caught on CCTV. He had dug up the graves of a woman and a man.”
On Monday morning, two graves were found tampered with at the city’s large cemetery in Bada Awar. One of the graves belonged to a woman who had been buried only a few days earlier, while the second grave remains unidentified.
The discovery sparked outrage among community members. A large crowd, including the bereaved family, City Qazi Syed Nisar Ali, and officers from Kotwali police station, gathered at the site.
In the presence of the woman’s relatives, her grave was restored.
This comes four months after six graves — including three belonging to women — were found open across two cemeteries at the same site. In that case, CCTV footage installed in the graveyard showed two men roaming completely naked near the graves at night. The footage then shows one of the men climbing a pole to cover a CCTV camera with a shroud. The case is now being investigated.
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According to the police, Khan held a superstitious belief that performing a tantric ritual with the hair of dead women would enhance his strength.
Khan was convicted by the court and awarded 20 years of rigorous imprisonment for the murder of his wife in 2010.
“During his time at the Indore Central Jail, a fellow inmate had told him about a tantric ritual that would help him increase his strength and power. The ritual required the hair of dead women. We suspect he was the one who had previously desecrated the graves of other women,” a senior police officer said.
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