Indian Police Arrest Man Wandering Town with Daughter’s Severed Head

A man in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state was arrested Wednesday after locals spotted him walking calmly down a village street with his daughter’s severed head in hand.

Sarvesh Kumar, 45, admitted to police he decapitated his 17-year-old daughter with a sword after finding her in “an objectionable” position with her boyfriend on March 3.

“This is my daughter’s head. I cut her off. I couldn’t find anything, else I would have killed both of them. I saw her. I have done it with a sharp tool. … Her body is lying in the room,” Kumar is heard saying in a video clip of his initial interrogation by police deployed to the scene on a Pandetara village street.

The suspect is seen holding his daughter’s severed head as he speaks to police officers in the now-viral video clip. The police are heard in the clip asking Kumar to place the head down on the ground and sit by the side of the road, which he does without protest. The officers later brought Kumar to a local police station and arrested him.

“A person named Sarvesh killed his teenaged daughter and was spotted carrying her severed head on the road. We intercepted him as soon as we received information about it and have taken him into custody,” local police official Kapil Deo Sing told NDTV reporters.

“We have also taken serious note of a photo which shows a police official carrying her head inappropriately. The cop has been suspended,” Sing added.

“The accused is being interrogated, and we will soon present him before a magistrate,” a local police officer said, adding that authorities have ordered a post-mortem examination of the victim’s body.

Pandetara village is located about 120 miles southeast of the Uttar Pradesh state capital of Lucknow. Uttar Pradesh recorded more crimes against women in 2019 than any other Indian state.

“India reported 4,05,861 cases of crimes against women in 2019 and Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 59,853 such incidents,” according to the latest available data from India’s National Crime Record Bureau.

Uttar Pradesh also recorded the highest number of crimes against female children in 2019 under India’s Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act with 7,444 cases, according to the bureau.