Thursday 6th February - Wake up with the latest headlines from all around the globe.

A MAN has been sentenced to death after he confessed to beheading a newborn and licking the blood dripping from its severed head as people watched horrified.

Describing it as a rarest of the rare case, a regional court in India determined occultist Lakhikanta Karmakar guilty of murder yesterday and applied a sentence of capital punishment.

The accused, who went under the alias Shyama, from Bankura village, carried out the attack in full view at the graveyard of a local Kali temple where he had built a makeshift shrine in 2012 .

At the time witnesses reported seeing a baby's head hanging from a tree and Karmakar licking the blood that was trickling down the severed neck.

Police were uncertain as to the motive for a human sacrifice but said they had found the dagger used and pictures of the baby's head hanging from a rope. The torso is was never found and the parents haven't been located.

"(He) was convicted and a fast track court considered the case to be the rarest of the rare and awarded him the death penalty," public prosecutor A.K. Chattopadhyay told local media.

"There is a possibility that Karmakar didn't murder the child but picked up its body from somewhere near the crematorium," police told the Times of India at the time of the arrest. "People who claim to be tantriks perform such gruesome rituals to fool villagers into believing in their powers."

Karmakar had been a tantrik for only a short time before his arrest - someone who practises the ancient Indian tradition of meditation and rituals known as tantra.

A number of people reportedly started beating the accused up and police took their time to rescue him from a near lynching.

Police say Karmakar has a long rap sheet and, along with his mother, Suli, used to target unwed girls looking to abort their foetuses.

"We have seized the dagger but the post-mortem report is awaited," Bankura police officer Pranav Kumar said.

"Our records say Karmakar was arrested several times for serious offences like robbery and extortion. He seems to have turned into a tantrik a few months ago."

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