Indian police have arrested a man they say kidnapped a two-year-old girl before roasting her on a fire and eating her because he was starving.
The gruesome incident took place in a jungle hamlet in Nellore district in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh about a week ago, a police officer said on Friday, and came to light after the 42-year-old man was later discovered gorging on a buffalo carcass.
“He was caught and handed over to us by villagers who found it strange that he was eating such a large animal with his bare hands with flourish,” the officer told Reuters. The man was arrested on Wednesday.
I really struggled with whether I should post this one or not. Really messed up things happen in the world all the time, but many are just isolated acts committed by truly sick individuals. I only post it because I have long been concerned about the ecological, economical, and social implications of the bush-meat trade in Africa. People wipe out entire species including the great apes (whose cut-up body parts look no different than a human’s) because they are hungry or because they know they can get money for the illegal meat on the black market. Then, last year it was reported that armed militias were actually hunting and eating the Pygmy population in Africa. The Pygmies appealed to the U.N. for protection. Anyways, what I took out of this was the thought that although this was probably a very very isolated incident, the fine line between widespread practices and insanity is a bit blurry at times.
tastes like chicken!
ugh.
I was taught in college never to criticise the dietary habits of foreign cultures.
re: bush meat, i have heard that is is considered a ‘delicacy,’ so it is not simply starvation as it is going to the wealthy quite often.
re: pygmy cannibalism, though some of this probably started out of desperation, it seems now to be a tool of terror.
Yes Razib, to clarify the people that hunt the bush meat don’t usually eat it. They sell it to rich people that think eating an ape will give them special powers or improve their performance in bed. The poor then use their profit for more basic forms of sustenance.