(Representative image)

PUDUKOTTAI: In what is suspected to be a macabre tantric ritual, the body of a three-year-old girl was found with her throat slit in a village in the district, the police said on Monday.

A woman allegedly practising witchcraft has been arrested, police said.

Chinnappillai took the girl, who was playing in front of her house at Kurumpatti , into the forest and allegedly killed her believing that a child sacrifice would increase her tantric power, they said.

She was produced before a court which remanded her in judicial custody.

The child went missing on October 25 and her parents found her body with the throat slit, but the jewels intact, police sources said.

Chinnappillai, on suspicion, was interrogated and she confessed to the crime, they added.

