Couple's choreographed suicide by guillotine ends with heads rolling into fire altar

NEW DELHI, India (TND) — These two are no Romeo and Juliet, but they could almost be mistaken for King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette.

A couple in India committed suicide using something like a guillotine to decapitate themselves, and they added the element of fire.

Police said they did it as a sacrificial ritual.

The couple first prepared a fire altar,” a police sub-inspector said, “before putting their heads under a guillotine-like mechanism held by a rope. As soon as they released the rope, an iron blade fell on them, severing their heads, which rolled into the fire.

The apparently well-choreographed finale for Hemubhai Makwana, 38, and his wife Hansaben, 35, took place over the weekend in a hut on their farm in the state of Gujarat in India.

They left behind a suicide note, and leave behind their parents and two children.

Fire is considered sacred for Hindus and is used in several rituals.

CBS News, which reported the story, said ritual human sacrifices occasionally take place in India, but they usually involve killing other people to please gods.