SURAT: Blind faith in black magic and tantric rituals led to a gruesome murder of a 50-year-old diamond polisher by his six family members including wife, three sons and daughter in Katargam area.Victim Kanji Kumbhar was forced to drink vermilion water after which his wife, three sons and one daughter-in-law took turns to jump on his chest, leading to his death. The family members strongly felt that Kumbhar had got possessed by some spirit and giving him vermilion water and jumping on his chest was the only to get rid of the evil from his body.Police said Kumbhar, who was a diamond worker, also believed in black magic and practised tantric rituals himself. On Wednesday, police arrested Kumbhar’s wife Hansa (45), three sons - Prakash (20), Dinesh (19) and youngest 17-year-old - daughter Hetal (23) and Prakash’s wife Nishita (19).The incident happened on November 11 but the family left Surat for their native village in Banaskantha district , leaving Kumbhar dead in their house in Vimalnath Apartment in Paras Society.However, they returned home on November 13 morning and Hansa went to Katargam police station and said that they found her husband dead in the house.Police began the probe by registering an accidental death and sent Kumbhar’s body for postmortem. However, the autopsy report confirmed that Kumbhar had died an unnatural death. “Report said that the death was caused due to shock and haemorrhage with severe injuries in the spleen and lungs,” said Katargam police station sources.During the interrogation, one of the family members broke down and narrated the entire incident.“They suspected that Kumbhar was possessed by some evil spirit. On November 10 night, they caught hold of him and daughter-in-law Nishita forced vermilion water down his throat. After this, all six of them took turns to jump on Kumbhar’s chest believing that this would drive out the evil spirit from his body,” said BC Thakkar, assistant commissioner of police. The injuries caused by continuous jumping on the chest obviously proved fatal for Kumbhar who died in the night, said Thakkar.It is learnt that Nishita also used to practise black magic regularly and it was on her insistence that other family members blindly agreed to using such lethal ritual.Hansa and Prakash are daily wagers while Dinesh is a diamond worker. Prakash’s wife Nishita and his sister Hetal are homemakers.A senior investigating officer said, “It was hard to believe that black magic could lead to a family taking the life of their own senior-most member.”Police said they are still interrogating the family members on some issues.

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