LUCKNOW, INDIA, APRIL 2, 2004: Eighteen sadhus and priests have been brutally murdered in and around Jaunpur district in Northern India in the last twelve months, triggering panic among the priests inhabiting the 300-odd temples in the region. While the body count continues to rise, the police remain clueless when the first priest was killed over a year ago. No one knows why they are being targeted. One theory suggests this as the handiwork of a maniac on the prowl. Another is the element of superstition vesting with a particular criminal tribe which believes that if their baton (branch of a tree which they use as a club) is smeared with a holy man’s blood it brings them “good luck” in future acts of crime. The police, however, have dismissed this insinuation as folklore. The say that “in two cases the culprits were arrested and booty recovered, establishing that robbery was the sole motive behind the killings.”
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