By Julia Yeow
Kuala Lumpur (dpa) – A Malaysian girl escaped from being tortured
for a month in an exorcism rite, a news report said Wednesday.
The 10-year-old girl escaped her torturer by picking the locks on
the chains around her feet and is being treated in hospital for burn
marks on both hands, bruises on her face, swollen wrists and
fractured ribs.
Shortly after she was admitted, police detained a relative with
whom she had been living in the southern state of Johor, the New
Straits Times reported.
Police said the girl, who has been in the care of the suspect
since her father died, was believed to have been subjected to daily
torture, supposedly to rid her of bad luck.
The suspect is believed to have beaten, burnt and starved her for
about a month, after a medium said the girl was an unlucky omen, the
report said.
Police have remanded the suspect for investigations, pending the
victim’s medical report.
In June, a Malaysian court sentenced a man to death for causing
the death of a 3-year-old girl during an exorcism ritual gone wrong.