Doctors operate on woman’s tongue after sacrificial ritual

She sliced off organ and gave it as offering at temple in Jharkhand

Awoman sliced off her tongue and gave it up as an offering at a Hindu temple in Jharkhand. This is the second such instance of sacrificial ritual reported in the past month.

The incident took place on Sunday evening at a temple dedicated to the deity Kali, at Kundu village in Lohardaga district.

Reports said the woman, in her 30s, visited the temple to offer prayers to the deity.

She sliced off her tongue with a knife and then offered it at the altar. The matter came to light when the family members rushed to the temple looking for the woman, after she did not return home.

The woman was immediately rushed to a hospital where doctors operated on her tongue in an hourlong surgery.

“As the [woman] was brought in late by her family members, it was practically impossible for us to stitch the same slit half again. However, she has undergone surgery and is considerably fine now. She is able to utter some words and eat few solid foods,” a local surgeon Dr Anant Sinha who conducted the operation told the media on Sunday.

Last month, a man had killed himself by slitting open his throat with a sharp edged knife at Chhinnamasta temple, a prominent Hindu pilgrimage centre located in Ramgarh district of Jharkhand.

The deceased, a staunch devotee of the deity, reached the temple early in the morning with a sharp knife in his hand and made several rounds of the temple before slitting his throat in front of the statue. The man died on the spot owing to profuse bleeding.

Chhinnamasta, a headless deity, is depicted in religious paintings as standing atop a copulating couple holding her severed head in one hand and a scimitar in the other, with jets of bloods spewing from the neck.

Earlier in May 2014, a 17-year-old villager sliced his tongue in Jharkhand and offered it to deity Shiva to get his wishes fulfilled.

Such incidents continue to take place quite often, despite intensive campaigns against superstitions by the government and NGOs.

PTI An elderly woman is helped by family members after she cast her vote in assembly elections at a polling station yesterday.