On the question of incidents of human sacrifices propagated through some of these books, Agarwal says, “If an unqualified person reads a book on medicine and treats a patient or performs a surgery, can you blame the author? More importantly, if you read this book [Indrajaal] with wrong intentions, your efforts won’t show results.”



Does that means publishers can get away without being punished? Perhaps not, going by what Venkatesh Bubberjung, a Bangalore-based senior lawyer and former state public prosecutor, has to say on the issue. “If there is a publication that promotes such activities and if a person follows instructions which result in the commission of an offence, punishable under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) or any other special law, the author, publisher and seller can be prosecuted for abetment to said offence.”