by Adeola Balogun

Shocking revelations have been made about the practices of a cannibal cult which has made its home around the Ganges River in northern India.

The Aghori cannibals eat dead human flesh, drink from skulls and also use human corpses as their beds.

The members of the cult are also said to rub their skin with ash from burned human bodies.

The Mirror reports:

The group are feared by locals despite only eating the flesh of people who are already dead.

Intrepid Irish photographer Darragh Mason, 37, spent time with the group – who are growing despite practicing celibacy.

Darragh said: “They are known to pull bodies from the Ganges and eat them.

“Skulls and other human bones are taken from the cremation grounds and used for ritual purposes. They believe that power comes from the dead.

“At one point they tried to get me to drink water from the Ganges out of a human skull but around two metres upstream they were cremating bodies so I just couldn’t – the river is teaming with disease anyway.”

Darragh said people were ‘attracted’ to the extreme sect’s way of life.

He said: “There was an American gentleman who lived with the group for sometime. Amazingly people are really attracted to this way of life.

“They actively try to be thought of as the lowest in society which is why they do not dress well and their hair is often matted.”

Despite their terrifying reputation the Aghori are charitable and have set up a leper colony where they have cared for and cured 99,045 patients with full leprosy and 147,503 with partial leprosy.