Sorcerer fails to revive boy with ceremony in Rajasthan

A heartbroken Indian couple who had lost their son, enlisted a sorcerer to perform a 17-hour ceremony to bring their dead child back to life.

The nine-year-old boy had died from a snakebite, and villagers gathered to help the ‘sorcerer’ carry out the bizarre ceremony in Dholpur, a district in the northern state of  Rajasthan.

The ceremony included placing the boy’s body on a burning mud-pyre and covering him in tree leaves after rubbing his body in cow faeces.

Footage from the ritual also shows the so-called ‘sorcerer’ pouring liquid into the dead boy’s nose through a tube, while villagers can be seen holding the body in a sitting position. 

The boy, named Chotu, had been  roasting millet when he was bitten by a snake. When his parents found him injured, they took him to a  local ‘sorcerer’who spent 40 minutes praying for the boy, after which he died.

The villagers buried Chotu, but after a family friend told the parents about another sorcerer who could bring him back to life, they excavated the body.  

False hope: The boy’s family were asked to place his body on mud pyre, cover it with leaves from the Neem tree, and light a fire around his body

The boy had died from a snakebite, and villagers in Dholpur district, northern India, spent 17 hours helping a ‘sorcerer’ carry out the ceremony to ‘bring him back to life’

The sorcerer instructed the family to rub cow faeces on the body and bathe their dead son in hot water several times.

They were then asked to place his body on mud pyre, cover it with leaves from the Neem tree, and light a fire around his body.

When the ‘sorcerer’ reached the spot, he began conducting prayer rituals, and also poured a liquid he claimed to be ‘medicine’ into the boy’s body through the tube inserted through the nostrils. 

However – unsurprisingly – the ritual had no effect, and the family were forced to bury their son again the following day.