Human sacrifices are still taking place throughout the world: Drug gangs, witch doctors & weird cults

The deadliest heatwave to hit India for more than 100 years has killed more than 2,500 people as temperatures soared to 50C and even the roads melted. But even among so many deaths, the murder of Thepa Kharia stands out.

A few weeks ago neighbours of the 55-year-old labourer found his body in a pool of blood at his home in an isolated village 280 miles west of Calcutta.

And it was only his body – his head had been hacked off by an occult group called the Orkas, who buried it in a parched ­farmer’s field in a bloody ritual meant to summon the rain and save their shrivelling crops.