Woman witness to sons’ sacrifice freed

The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday acquitted a woman who, along with a relative, witnessed her superstitious husband and his sister slaughtering her two sons in 1978. Shahrunnisa’s husband also wanted to kill their third son, but the child was saved in time.

An SC bench said it did not think that not opposing the gruesome act indicated their intention to sacrifice the children. The court dismissed the Uttar Pradesh government’s appeal challenging the high court’s acquittal of  two people in the gruesome killings of Shamshad Ali, 7, and Naushad 4, by their own father Abdul Hafiz Khan with the help of his sister Shakila Bano. The high court had acquitted Shahrunnisa and Siraj Khan saying they were, perhaps, scared of Khan. “There can be no dispute that the spectre of superstition had affected the psyche of these accused,” the SC said while quashing the appeal.

Even after seeing the police, Khan and Bano said that “Paigamber (prophet)” had possessed their daughter. Khan had “sacrificed” his two sons and said he would sacrifice the third one also. The police rescued the third boy, Shaukat Ali, and arrested all the persons. The Allahabad sessions judge had found all the accused guilty of murder, common intention and also attempt to murder.

The SC called it “a bane to Indian society that in search of some worldly gains, the society becomes superstitious and blindly follows the path which leads only to desolation”.