Bhadrak (Odisha), February 15 The bodies of five villagers are allegedly missing from a graveyard in Bhadrak district, Odisha, prompting authorities to order a thorough investigation, a police officer said on Sunday.
Police said the bodies were found missing from the cremation ground in Maninathpur village, located on the banks of the Baitarani river, under the Bhandaripokhari police station limits of the coastal district, on Thursday night.
"I received a complaint from the villagers of Maninathpur on Sunday about the disappearance of five bodies from the village cremation ground," said Rajlakshmi Nayak, the inspector in charge (IIC) of the Bhandaripokhari police station.
According to Nayak, the missing bodies belonged to Khageswar Samal, Hatabandhu Beuria, Kartik Nayak, Saraswati Behera, and Kalandi Behera, who died in the last two months.
At the Swargadwar cremation ground, located on the Baitarani riverbed, bodies are traditionally buried after funeral rites.
However, this was not the first such incident in the village. In 2016, villagers had discovered that the body of a child had been exhumed two months after his death, said Solampur panchayat Paramananda Nayak. In the same year, the body of Anam Behera was also exhumed from his grave.
The bodies of Basanta Das, who died in a road accident, and headmaster Basudev Das went missing from the cremation ground the following year, he said.
Three more bodies went missing in June 2023, prompting the villagers to lodge a complaint at the police station. On April 1, 2025, when the son of Rukmini Samal, who had died of cardiac arrest, visited the burial site during the tenth-day ritual and found the grave dug up and the body missing.
Water and liquor bottles were found at the site, and about 200 meters away, decomposed flesh and parts of clothes were discovered. Her husband, Srimanta, had also lodged a complaint with the police at that time, another villager said.
Villagers suspect that the bodies may have been stolen for occult practices, scientific experiments, or some other purposes.
Locals allege that the police have not given adequate importance to the complaints lodged so far.
Bhadrak SP Manoj Rout has directed the IIC of the Bhandaripokhari police station to investigate the repeated disappearances of bodies.
"The IIC of the Bhandaripokhari police station was directed to inquire into the incidents and submit a report," he said.