Human sacrifice in defence research?

Time was when thuggery was quite common. Those chaps are supposed to have preyed on unsuspecting pilgrims, chopping their heads off before decamping with whatever they could steal.

Lgend has it thugs elevated their murdering to the status of a cult, with the victims being seen more as human sacrifices to appease the gods. Now, sacrifice, of various sorts, has been quite a hallmark of our civilisational process.

Things turn murky when some sacrifices turn out to be not so voluntary. Normally we treat such stories as instances of superstition, which still runs deep. But what happens when someone entirely unexpected goes sacrifice-loony?

We calmly seem to accept it as part of the landscape. Thus, there was no frenzy over a recent report of two senior scientists at Gwalior���s Defence Research and Development Establishment (DRDE) allegedly trying to do the human sacrifice job on one of their junior colleagues.

The wife of the junior DRDE scientist alleges that her husband, being unwell, accepted the kind offer of the senior scientists to ���cure��� him. He was asked to come to one of the scientist���s home, where he���s said to have found one of them engaged in a ���worship ritual���.

Allegedly, he was then asked to sleep, while water was sprinkled over him, and realised something was amiss only when a sharp-edged weapon made an appearance. He then presumably legged it right back home. Well, it���s all accusations for now, with the police rightly waiting to hear the senior scientists��� version. But it does pose a troubling query.

Assuming even the unproved nature of the story, just how does such a thing emerge from among scientists? And chaps linked to our defence industry! Maybe it���s all a misunderstanding.

Perchance they were conducting a bit of, um, research. Or maybe it���s a hoax. One just has to hope for the best. We���re already worried about all those delays in those ambitious defence projects. And we would rather prefer if magic, black or otherwise, was left out of the picture.