Sarvesh Kumar was arrested while walking towards a police station in Hardoi district on Wednesday night, carrying the severed head of his 17-year-old daughter.
“He was walking to the police station to confess what he had done,” a Hardoi Police spokesman told CNN on Friday.
“He told the police that he saw his daughter with a young man who he believes she was seeing, which made him furious that he was against it,” added the spokesman.
While Kumar, a vegetable seller from the village of Pandetara, walked a mile from his home to the police station, passersby alerted the police, who stopped him and started filming him.
During that time, according to the police spokesman, Kumar told authorities about his daughter’s relationship, saying he found her alone at home, locked her in a room and cut off her head with a knife.
“Given the situation, he was calm. He was neither crying nor hysterical. When the police talked to him, they asked him to put his daughter’s head on the floor and sit down, which he heard without question.” the police spokesman told CNN.
Kumar is currently in custody, where he remains under interrogation, the spokesman added. A list of charges will be compiled as soon as the investigation is completed. He will have access to a public lawyer as soon as he is formally charged and will remain in custody until trial, police said.