3-month-old baby's severed head found on roof, Indian police suspect child sacrifice on lunar eclipse

In a suspected case of human sacrifice during the total lunar eclipse on Wednesday (31 January), a three-month-old baby's head was found on the terrace of an independent house at Chilkanagar in Hyderabad, India.

Rajashekar Goud, an Uber driver found the child's head and alerted the police, Dr Tarun Joshi, joint commissioner of police said.

"It is likely that the murder could be related to the rare cosmic occurrence of super blue blood moon on Wednesday. We have gathered some clues," the joint commissioner said, according to Deccan Chronicle newspaper.

According to reports, the child's head was said to be chopped with a sharp edged weapon.

The police sent dog squad and CLUES team (investigative wing) to collect evidences and retrieve the torso. However, it is not known where the rest of the body is.

"At the moment, we cannot even say if the baby was a boy or girl. We are trying to recover the other part of the body, if it was left somewhere", deputy police commissioner Umamaheswara Sarma said, according to Mumbai Mirror website.

According to police reports, on Thursday morning, Goud's mother-in-law Bhagyalaxmi had gone to the terrace for some work when she noticed the head of an infant.

According to Bhagyalaxmi, "Initially, I thought someone had dumped garbage on the terrace. When I was checking it out, I found the head of an infant. I dropped it and shouted for help."

Goud and his family said that they had closed the gates and had gone to sleep and did not know how someone could come and throw the head on their terrace, according to The News Minute website.

A case has been registered and the decapitated head has been sent for post mortem to Gandhi Hospital.

"It appears that someone who did not want to have the baby was behind the murder," Deputy Commissioner of Police Vishwa Prasad told The Times of India newspaper.

This is the second such gory incident in the past five days in and around Hyderabad. Recently, a rotting body of a pregnant woman was found chopped and dumped in two different sacks on the roadside in the city.

Post mortem report stated that the victim was eight-months-pregnant and was about to deliver a baby boy. Police suspect the victim was murdered at another location and was then chopped up into pieces before being dumped.