The police in Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu on Sunday arrested a woman in connection with the human sacrifice of a four-year-old girl last month. The police suspect that the child was killed as a part of a black magic ritual, The News Minute reported.

On October 25, the child, who was playing near her home in Kurumpatti village near Iluppur, went missing. The girl’s parents and neighbours set out to search for her, and found her body in a field among the bushes, with her throat slit open.

On Sunday, the police arrested 47-year-old Chinnapillai, the girl’s neighbour in Kurumpatti. “We probed the matter and found that Chinnapillai was the one who committed the murder,” Police Inspector Mangayarkarasi said. “She had injury marks on her wrists and forearms, which was indicative that Shalini had put up a fight before she was killed.”

The accused has allegedly confessed to the crime. She claimed that she wanted to offer the child as a sacrifice to a local deity near the cremation grounds in the village, so that she could have better luck in her profession. The accused said that Shalini was an easy choice because she was her neighbour.

The police have booked Chinnapillai for murder, and she has been sent to judicial custody. The accused is now lodged at the Trichy Central Women’s prison, The News Minute reported.