Evidence of human sacrifice to try to ensure the success of ancient construction projects has been found for the first time at a Korean site, officials said Tuesday.

Two skeletons dating from the 5th century were found under the walls of the Wolseong, or Moon Castle, in Gyeongju in South Korea, the capital of the former Silla kingdom, Seoul’s Cultural Heritage Administration said in a statement.

“This is the first archaeological evidence that folklore about humans being sacrificed for the foundations of buildings, dams or walls were true stories,” spokeswoman Choi Moon-Jung of the Gyeongju National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage told AFP.

The burial of living victims with dead kings to serve them in the afterlife is well known in ancient Korean cultures.

How the Wolseong victims were put to death was not yet clear and further research was being carried out, but they did not appear to have been buried alive.

“Judging from the fact that there are no signs of resistance when they were buried, they must have been buried when they were unconscious or dead,” said senior researcher Park Yoon-Jung.

“Folklore indicates humans were sacrificed to appease gods and plead with them to ensure the structures being built lasted a long time.”

The two skeletons were found side by side under a western corner of the castle’s earth and stone walls, with one facing upward, the other turning its face and arms slightly towards the first.

The Silla kingdom was one of three that emerged on the Korean peninsula in the first millennium, eventually conquering the other two to unify the territory in 668. It later split up and was finally overwhelmed in 935.

Artefacts from the period include some of Korea’s most precious cultural treasures and the historic sites of Gyeongju are a major tourist attraction.

DNA and other tests were being carried out on the remains to determine their physical characteristics, health, diet and genetic attributes.

Other finds included wooden inscription tablets and 6th-century animal and human figurines, including one whose turban and clothing appeared similar to those worn in the ancient Central Asian civilisation of Sogdiana.

NEW DELHI – India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) searched the homes of former finance minister P. Chidambaram and his son on Tuesday, in a probe into suspected criminal misconduct related to approvals of investment deals.

The dawn raids marked an escalation in pressure by federal investigators against Chidambaram, a senior leader of the opposition Congress party who has been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The CBI, India’s main federal crime-fighting agency, conducted searches at locations in the cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Gurugram and Chennai, including the residence of Chidambaram’s son Karti there.

The raids were “in connection with criminal misconduct” in granting approval for foreign investment deals, a CBI spokesman said without giving further details.

Chidambaram denied wrongdoing. He said all investment approvals granted during his tenure were above board.

“The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends,” he said in a statement.

“The government’s aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing,” said Chidambaram, who writes a weekly column for the Indian Express. “All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write.”

A veteran lawmaker of Modi’s right-wing ruling party, which defeated the Congress by a landslide in 2014, said the raids were linked to litigation he has brought over the approval of a 2006 telecoms deal he alleges was corrupt.

“The raids have to take place to get documents and incriminating evidence which they have kept,” Subramanian Swamy told television news agency ANI, an affiliate of Reuters.

“The whole country will come to know that this is the most corrupt party in the world,” he said.

REPEATED ATTACKS

Chidambaram, 71, served twice as finance minister in the Congress-led coalition that ran India for a decade – from 2004-08 and then from 2012 until the party’s election defeat at the hands of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in May 2014.

He has been the target of repeated attacks by Swamy, who has also brought a case against Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul, accusing them of criminal misappropriation of funds from a party newspaper.

Both deny any wrongdoing.

In 2006, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approved the acquisition of 100 per cent of Indian telecom firm Aircel by Malaysia’s Maxis, a deal that has spawned a series of legal battles.

BJP spokesman GVL Narasimha Rao alleged that approval for the Aircel-Maxi transaction was awarded by the FIPB – a government panel – in return for favours.

“This is not a political case,” Rao told Republic TV. “From whatever facts that have emerged so far this is a case of money laundering.”

Chidambaram said in his statement that neither he nor FIPB officials were suspected of wrongdoing.

“There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me,” he said.

“Every case was processed according to law and approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIPB,” he said.

New Delhi – An Indian court will decide whether a 10-year-old Indian girl left pregnant after she was repeatedly raped should be allowed to have an abortion, police said Tuesday.

The child, who was often left at home while her mother went out to work on construction sites, has said she was raped by her stepfather, who has since been arrested.

Her case only came to light last week, by which time she had crossed the 20-week legal limit after which terminations are only allowed where there is a danger to the life of the mother or the baby.

“We have filed an application in the concerned court seeking an order for abortion,” said Pankaj Nain, the police chief of Rohtak district in northern Haryana state.

“Now it is for the courts to decide,” Nain told AFP.

In recent months India’s top court has received a number of petitions from women — including rape survivors and trafficking victims — seeking abortions where pregnancies had gone beyond 20 weeks.

Activists say the restriction should be extended to 24 weeks as victims of rape are often late to report their pregnancies.

In 2015, the Supreme Court allowed a 14-year-old rape survivor to abort a foetus after the 20-week limit.

Nain said the 10-year-old had made a statement to police and was being given counselling and medical care.

Her ordeal came to light when her mother called a women’s helpline last week to register a complaint after her daughter confided in her.

Rohtak hit the headlines last week when a 23-year-old was abducted, raped and killed by her ex-boyfriend.

India has a gruesome record on rape, with the capital New Delhi alone registering 2,199 rape cases in 2015 — an average of six a day.

Nearly 40,000 rape cases are reported every year in India, but the real number is thought to be much higher, with victims wary of how their complaints will be dealt with or the social stigma attached to sex crimes.