June 18th, 2012
New Delhi, India (CNN)— Police in the northern India state of Rajasthan say they were stunned when a man showed up at a police outpost holding a bloody human head in one hand and a sword in another.
The head was that of the man’s daughter, chopped off because of her “indecent behavior,” Umesh Ojha, deputy superintendent of the district police, told CNN.
Investigators say the man, Oghad Singh, had paraded the head through the village on his way to the police station.
Singh’s daughter, Manju Kunwar, was in her 20s and was living with her parents after divorcing her husband two years ago. Her father accused her of acting indecently with other men.
Authorities say Kunwar’s mother is a farmer who was working in the fields at the time and was too distraught to talk. Singh works in a marble quarry.
The beheading happened on Tuesday in Dengar Ka Guda, a village in Rajsamand District about 400 kilometers, or 250 miles, from Jaipur in the state of Rajasthan.
Kunwar’s head and the rest of her body were cremated according to Hindu tradition, police said.
Related: NewsRescue- Young Father Beats Daughter to Death in India Because He Wanted a Son
India is filled with extremes on many levels, including how women are treated. In India women hold some of the highest positions in society, from company CEOs to the president and speaker of the House, but this case highlights another side of India, one in which women still suffer the consequences of long-held traditions that govern their behavior in Indian society.
This month India topped the Thomas Reuters Foundation poll as the worst place to be a woman among the top 19 economies in the world. The foundation cited abuse, killings and discrimination on a scale unparalleled in the other developed nations.