Police manhunt for cult leader who 'eats girls'

Scores of police have been sent to the jungles of remote Papua New Guinea to hunt for a cult leader known as the Black Jesus, who is said to have sacrificed three young women to the devil and eaten their bodies.

In one case reported by villagers, a mother who had fallen under the cult leader's spell led her 14-year-old daughter to his hideout, offered her to him as a virgin then stabbed her to death.

The Black Jesus, 31-year-old Steven Tari, started his cult last year after he was expelled from a Bible college for stealing from fellow students.

He has enticed girls as young as 12 from their homes to be sex slaves, and is thought to have more than 6,000 followers who believe in human sacrifice.