Pakistani held for cannibalism after eating baby

A Pakistani man was arrested on suspicion of cannibalism when the head of a newborn baby was found at his home — three years after he was jailed for the same offence.

Police raided the house in a remote village in Punjab province after neighbours complained of a foul smell and found the head of the two-day-old baby inside.

Householder Mohammad Arif admitted eating the child after his brother stole the body from a graveyard in Darya Khan village, around 300 kilometres south of Islamabad, officers said.

Arif and his brother Farman Ali were arrested for eating human corpses in the same village in April 2011 and served two years in prison, in a case that shocked Pakistan.

“Arif has been arrested and he has confessed that his brother brought the dead body of the newborn from the nearby graveyard,” said Ameer Abdullah, police chief of Bhakkar district where the village is located.

“Arif told police that both of them later cooked the dead body and ate it.”

There is no specific law against cannibalism in Pakistan’s penal code so, as in the 2011 case, Arif has been charged with desecrating a dead body and public order offences. In the earlier case police found the body of a 24-year-old woman who had recently died of cancer at the men’s house — minus a leg, which they had eaten.

A hunt is under way to find Ali, Abdullah said, while Arif will undergo psychiatric tests.