Kannauj: In a horrific incident, a tantric strangled a 14-year-old girl to death, then raped the body and slit her throat to perform rituals all in the presence of her parents who wanted to find a hidden treasure in their fields in Bhadausi village of Kannauj district in UP on Saturday.

The accused occultist cum teacher Krishna Kumar Sharma performed all this ritual in a corn field after the girl's parents approached him to help them find a hidden treasure.

Police have arrested the tantric who was on the run after sexually assaulting and murdering the girl, Kavita, in a heinous incident of human sacrifice.

Giving details about the crime, Kannauj Assistant Superintendent of Police Keshav Chandra Goswami told ANI, "The father of the girl, Mahaveer Prasad, contacted the occultist to seek his help in finding gold buried in the premises of the former's house. He advised Mahaveer and his wife Pushpa(50) that if they sacrificed their daughter they would get five kilos of buried gold within hours of the ritual."

The accused agreed to help and invited the family to a local temple, where he recited some prayers and then took the girl, who was semi-conscious, to the field on the pretext of completing the ritual. The girl was stripped for the ritual in front of the parents. He then strangulated her as a part of the ritual and the dumped the body in a nearby field.

While dumping the body of the girl, the tantric raped it as her parents stood nearby. After the crime, he then slightly cut open the neck to collect the blood to be offered to the deity.

The accused made the parents believe that the girl would regain her consciousness in some time and fled from the scene.

The victim’s father, Mahaveer Prasad(55), who is a jeweller, then complained to the police against the tantric for kidnapping his daughter.

The police recovered the body on June 8 from the field and has sent it for postmortem. The girl’s parents have been taken into custody for questioning.

The ASP told the media that the victim's father could be involved in the murder plot, however the facts could be ascertained only once the investigation is completed.