Oceania – A KIWI ‘witch doctor’ is being questioned by police after a baby was found crawling away from five dead bodies discovered at the bottom of cliff.
The family of five – who were known to the man – were found lying at the base of a mountain range on the island of Fiji, about 20 miles from where their car had been abandoned.
One-year-old Samaira Kumar was found crying by the roadside in the Nausori Highlands close to where her lifeless relatives were found.
Police confirmed the identity of the bodies as 63-year-old carpenter, Nirmal Kumar, his 54-year-old wife Usha Devi, their 34-year-old daughter, Nileshni Kajal and her two daughters Sana, 11, and Samara, 8.
It is not clear what relation the baby girl has to the family.
Kelera Toloi, 25, stumbled across the scene around 9am on Monday.
The young mother told the Fiji Sun: “I grabbed her and changed her soggy diaper straight away then fed her two milk bottles.
“Fortunately she couldn’t walk yet or she would’ve fallen off the cliff.”
Ms Toloi said she the infant had probably been alone in the wilderness, hungry and without shelter or sustenance for perhaps 36 hours.
Post mortem results revealed the victims had ingested an alleged harmful substance which resulted in their deaths.
‘WITCH DOCTOR’
A 62-year-old bus driver from Christchurch in New Zealand, named by local media as Muhammad Raheesh Isoof, was taken by police for questioning.
Mr Isoof was reportedly born in Fiji but relocated to New Zealand and had know the family for decades, The New Zealand Herald reported.
Nirmal Kumar’s brother Raj told stuf.co.nz that Mr Isoof was known locally as “Kamal” and was a highly-sought after “healer” revered for his “special abilities”.
He said the man lived next door to the family and had been treating his sister-in-law Usha Devi for severe abdominal pains for several years.
A family friend, who did not want to be named, told the publication: “He prays for them and gives them some herbal medicine or something to drink.
“They’ve performed rituals together at the beach and elsewhere. This is not the first time they’ve been out together.
“Headaches, sores on the leg, any type of pain — he had this special power to fix it by praying for people.
“And he knew about herbal medicine sometimes he would give that too.”
SOURCE: thesun.co.uk