Darya Khan John Doe was a child whose skull was discovered in the home of two convicted cannibals. Pakistani police believe he had died at some point prior and dug up from his grave.
Case[]
On April 14, 2014, residents of Darya Khan village in Pakistan reported to the police a foul smell coming from a house located on the outskirts of the village. The police raided the home and arrested a man named Mohammad Arif. After searching the house the police discovered a human skull on the property. The skull was examined and determined to belong to a male child 2-3 years old. The child had died long before the raid.
Not long after the police arrested Arif's brother Mohammad Farman Ali. The two brothers had been arrested before back in 2011. For digging up several graves and cooking their remains into curry and eating them. They were arrested after the relatives of 24-year-old Saira Perveen discovered her grave desecrated the day after she was buried. Due to a lack of laws criminalizing cannibalism in Pakistan, the two were given lenient sentences which led to their release and later this incident.
Farman Ali confessed while Arif denied any involvement. He claimed to only know about his brother removing the child from his grave, dismembering, cooking and eating him. Arif claimed that he didn't take part in these acts himself. On June 11, 2014, an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan convicted the two brothers and sentenced them to 11 years imprisonment.
Only the decedent's skull was found despite an extensive search of Farman Ali and Arif's property as well as nearby cemeteries. Pakistani police presume that the rest of the decedent's remains had been eaten. Although an exact post-mortem interval has never been established, based on the age of the remains and the brother's M.O. police do not believe that the brothers are involved in the decedent's death.
Sources[]
- Alwasat (Urdu)
- Daily Mail
- The Strait Times
- India Today
- BBC
- Pakistani Police (Urdu)