Kuala Lumpur, Jul 21: A 10-year-old girl has sustained severe injuries, inculding burn marks on both hands, bruises on her face, swollen wrists and fractured ribs, after being subjected to torturous exorcism rite for a month.
The girl, who escaped her torturer by picking the locks on the chains around her feet, is now recovering in a hospital, the New Straits Times reported.
Police detained a relative with whom the girl had been living in Johor. Ever since the death of her father, the girl had been in the care of the suspect.
The police suspect that she was subjected to daily torture in a bid to do away with her 'bad luck'.
The suspect, who believed that the girl was an unlucky omen, thrashed her, burnt her and starved her for about a month.
The victim's medical report is awaited and the suspect has been detained in police custody, the newspaper report added.
A similar case of torture against a minor was reported earlier. A man was sentenced to death in Jun 2010 for killing a 3-year-old girl. The toddler's death was caused when an exorcism ritual went wrong.
