SEX IS DEATH. (Even in India)

I came to Carthage, where I found myself in the midst of a hissing cauldron of lusts. I had not yet fallen in love, but I was in love with the idea of it, and this feeling that something was missing made me despise myself for not being more anxious to satisfy the need. I began to look around for some object for my love, since I badly wanted to love something. —St. Augustine, Confessions

Guardian Unlimited: Delhi families' rage over serial killings
Forty or more people, ranging from a boy aged 10 months to a 32-year-old mother of three, may have fallen victim to two of India's most prolific serial killers as the authorities revealed their suspicion that murders may have been carried out to harvest body parts such as kidneys, livers and kneecaps.

Wow. You can get your SEX IS DEATH thingee on, and make some extra coin as well. Ain't modernity grand, kiddies?

Police in Noida, an upmarket satellite city of the Indian capital, New Delhi, alleged last night that they had established 'a connection' between a wealthy building contractor Mohinder Pandher and his servant Satish Koli, the two men arrested for the killings, and their missing neighbour RK Singh, a local doctor who was prosecuted in 2002 for trying to sell a patient's kidney on the Indian black market.

Pandher and Satish have been charged with kidnapping, raping and murdering 10 children and five women, mostly teenagers. Police say Satish has confessed that he and his master lured the victims into their house with toffees and chocolates before raping and killing them. However, confessions not made in court are inadmissible under Indian law.

Maybe it was the other way around. Since we are going to harvest these slum kids for parts, we might as well have some fun with them before we take them apart...

Same difference, kiddies. Dead is dead.

The claims came as The Observer acquired the first photographs of the dead or missing, including six children who lived within 150 yards of each other in Nithari Basti, the migrant workers' slum that borders the main suspect's luxury three-storey villa.

All six youngsters had been missing since October last year. According to relatives, their disappearances had been ignored by the local police. Most of the missing were young girls.

Pandher, a dealer in earth-moving equipment, and his domestic help were originally arrested last week after police picked up the servant for questioning over his suspected involvement in the disappearance of Madhu Haldar, a 15-year-old girl who went missing in late December. Investigations later led to the discovery in the new year of skeletal remains of at least 17 victims, including 13 children, stuffed in bags and left in the drains behind and in front of the Pandher home. The victims were all missing their torsos and kneecaps.

Since then the parents of more than 40 youngsters, all aged between three and 18, have come forward to provide DNA as the search for other bodies continues. 'There is a suspicion that a neighbour who was a doctor might be involved in the human organ transplant racket,' senior Noida police official Saumitra Yadav told The Observer yesterday. 'We are increasingly resigned to that being the case.

'The doctor is missing. We fear he may have become a victim himself. There are over 40 missing children in the immediate area. We can only assume the worst at this point.'

Yesterday one of the doctors who examined the remains of the victims questioned the original police theory that the murders had been motivated solely by 'rape and lunacy'.

'The theory that they were sexual deviants is full of loopholes,' said Vinod Kumar, chief medical superintendent at Noida district hospital. 'Whoever did it is seasoned and cold blooded. I am not claiming some professional did it, but the finesse with which the mutilations were done is bound to raise eyebrows.

Six of one, a half dozen of the other.

'There is a definite pattern in the killings. Almost all have only the heads, legs and arms. There are no torsos. Who does this kind of thing? Someone who is profiting from the sale of body parts.'

Yesterday, as police fought to control further riots by angry locals, the leader of India's ruling coalition, Sonia Gandhi, made a surprise visit to the scene of the crime and harshly criticised the local police handling of the investigation. Responsibility for it has now been handed over to India's top federal investigating agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Ah...a politician to the rescue. She'll pass a law forcing people to love and respect their neighbors.

In the last week, six police officers have been suspended after it emerged that Pandher, the prime suspect in the case, was arrested 13 months ago following a series of complaints from local residents in the slum bordering his house who suspected his involvement in the disappearance of their children. But the suspect walked out of the police station the same night.

According to Sagar Berai, whose 12-year-old granddaughter was one of the confirmed victims of the killers, his family has spent the last 10 months pleading with the police to investigate the children's case.

'We are all poor migrants from Nepal and eastern West Bengal state,' he said. 'I am not alone; dozens of my neighbours have been living on the doorstep of the local police station crying for help to find their children. So many have disappeared in the last two years, many of them from near the same water tank. The police repeatedly told me "You Bengalis have so many children and you can't take care of them". They mocked us, but we knew she had been taken.'

Sick.

The World's Largest Democracy still needs some fine tuning.

Vandana Sarkar, whose 20-year-old daughter, Pinky, disappeared in October and has since been confirmed by police as among the victims, yesterday described the experience of having to identify her body.

'I was given nothing of her. I only saw her white pants completely drenched with blood,' she said, holding a photograph of Pinky at age 17 - round-faced and pretty in a sari, with her hands decorated with henna. 'I cannot even begin to imagine what they must have done to her.'

May God have mercy on all their poor souls.

Meanwhile, the defense opens its case...

AFP: Son says India's suspected child killer is not a monster

Not a monster, Citizen. Human. All too human.

The son of a businessman who is the main suspect in the serial killings of at least 17 people said his father should not be judged before any trial, news reports have said.

Look! More politicians:

Islamic Republic News Agency: Indian Left, Right parties demand inquiry in children's serial killings
The Communist Party of India (CPI) on Tuesday demanded a CBI (Central Bureau of Investigations) probe in the Nithari village case of serial killing or more than 40 children, as it is being linked with human organ trafficking.

If it was just rape and murder would it matter to the CPI?

Part 1: SEX IS DEATH. (Stories for boys) is here.
Part 2: SEX IS DEATH. (Distaff death) is here.
Part 3: SEX IS DEATH. (Joyously dispensing death) is here.
Part 4: SEX IS DEATH. (Sex is depression) is here.
Part 5: SEX IS DEATH. (When self-pleasuring becomes self-destruction) is here.
Part 6: SEX IS DEATH. (Sex is theft) is here.
Part 7: SEX IS DEATH. (A review of Bareback Mountain) is here.
Part 8: SEX IS DEATH. (What is the ultimate penalty?) is here.
Part 9: SEX IS DEATH. (Haven from reality) is here.
Part 10: SEX IS DEATH. (Sin-redemption-reasons-reason) is here.
Part 11: SEX IS DEATH. (Mommy loves you) is here.
Part 12: SEX IS DEATH. (George Gilder offers a clue) is here.
Part 13: SEX IS DEATH. (Post-killem depression) is here.
Part 14: SEX IS DEATH. (Whither womanhood) is here.
Part 15: SEX IS DEATH. (Saving psychology 1) is here.
Part 16: SEX IS DEATH. (Saving psychology 2) is here.
Part 17: SEX IS DEATH. (Fear of the boomers) is here.
Part 18: SEX IS DEATH. (The battle continues apace) is here.
Part 19: SEX IS DEATH. (Hot for teacher) is here.
Part 20: SEX IS DEATH. (Kids do the darndest things) is here.
Part 21: SEX IS DEATH. (Defects) is here.
Part 22: SEX IS DEATH. (Privates' privacy) is here.
Part 23: SEX IS DEATH. (National Condom Week) is here.
Part 24: SEX IS DEATH. (Wegenics) is here.
Part 25: SEX IS DEATH. (White wedding) is here.
Part 26: SEX IS DEATH. (Literally) is here.
Part 27: SEX IS DEATH. (Can't get me no satisfaction) is here.
Part 28: SEX IS DEATH. (Wrestle with mania) is here.
Part 29: SEX IS DEATH. (Press one for death/Presione uno para la muerte) is here.
Part 30: SEX IS DEATH. (Raunch culture) is here.
Part 31: SEX IS DEATH. (Gimme some of that sweet zombie lovin') is here.
Part 32: SEX IS DEATH. (The devil made me eat my baby) is here.
Part 33: SEX IS DEATH. (Mind control = womb control) is here.
Part 34: SEX IS DEATH. (The expense of playing with yourself) is here.
Part 35: SEX IS DEATH. (You can't always get what you want) is here.
Part 36: SEX IS DEATH. (Whom does a master serve?) is here.
Part 37: SEX IS DEATH. (Shootin' 5 for 8) is here.
Part 38: SEX IS DEATH. (Being a never-wed mom of four and an illegal alien is no picnic either) is here.
Part 39: SEX IS DEATH. (Duane indulges himself then goes out in a blaze of cowardice) is here.
Part 40: SEX IS DEATH. (The line is not fine at all) is here.
Part 41: SEX IS DEATH. (Worse than homelessness) is here.
Part 42: SEX IS DEATH. (Attack of the hooker dolls) is here.
Part 43: SEX IS DEATH. ('Benefits' for men - death for women) is here.