KARACHI, Nov 9: Two brothers have been arrested for theft of human remains from graves to practise what police described on Wednesday as the black arts.

According to the police, Haji Mohammad, a watchman at a nearby government school, went on Monday to the Ghulam Mohammad Jhokio graveyard, spread over 16 acres along the Superhighway, to offer Fateha at his mother’s grave and found, to his utter amazement, several graves dug up. It emerged later that the remains of about 30 children were missing from the graves.

The news spread quickly in the neighbouring localities whose residents came to the graveyard and staged a protest demonstration.

Loath to taking the matter seriously at first, the police started an investigation only after the protests and arrested on Tuesday two brothers — 42-year-old Chaitan and 35-year-old Sachin — for stealing the remains from the graves.

SHO of the Gulshan-i-Maymar police station Shareef Meo said the arrests were made on the statement of Mohammad Akhtar, who had alleged that the two Hindu brothers had tried to harm him by resorting to the black arts using human skulls and bones.

Apart from the statement, police found no evidence against the two suspects, the SHO conceded.

Mr Meo claimed that the brothers not only used human remains to make amulets but also sold them to other practitioners of the black arts.

The Gulshan-i-Maymar police station registered a case (FIR 255/2011) under Sections 297 (trespassing on burial places etc) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code on a complaint of Haji Mohammad.