Guwahati, 15 April 2022: A man has confessed to eating human meat in a crematorium in Bidyapur, in Assam’s Bongaigaon district. The man, identified as Satish Chandra Rai, is a resident of Bongaigaon.

Villagers reported that they had seen the man taking portions of a dead body at a local Hindu cremation ground and later saw him eating them. The villagers caught the man and have handed him over to police.

Satish allegedly admitted to being inebriated, and consuming half of the body’s meat. The dead body had been consigned to the flames, but not completely burnt, as the man was able to find edible flesh still attached.

Police have arrested the man, and are interrogating him at the police station.  Locals are now demanding that he be ousted from the village by the village council.

Like other places, cannibalism happens in India, even though it is a largely vegetarian country.

In 2020, a blind couple in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur district allegedly had a seven-year-old girl killed so they could eat her organs.

In 2017, Sunil Rama Kuchkoravi of Kolhapur murdered his mother after she refused to give him money to buy liquor. He later chopped up parts of her body and ate them, after frying them in a pan.

A (supposedly) forthcoming movie called A CANNIBAL MIND follows the life of Raja Ram Mohan, who allegedly murdered, mutilated and ate the brains of over 40 victims.

Back in Assam, in 2012 tea workers killed the owner of the plantation where they worked and allegedly ate his flesh.

It can happen anywhere and, as our alleged drunk has shown us, human meat is pretty much the same as any other animal’s flesh. Particularly when cooked.