Man kills wife to get ailing son cured

A man killed his wife and ate her tongue in the belief that it would help cure his only son in Rajpur area here last evening, police said today. Bharat Lal, a storekeeper with the Survey of India, has been arrested, they added.

After praying at a nearby temple with his teenaged son and two daughters, Lal reportedly attacked his wife, Kamla Devi, with a knife. As she ran for help, he cut off her tongue and ate it, police said. He then hacked her to death and set her body afire, police said.

Lal, a native of Pithoragarh district, later told police he sacrificed his wife to propitiate Goddess Kali so his ailing son, believed to be under the spell of a ghost, could be cured.