A cop with a smartphone captured the moment Satish, 35, put his bag on the floor of a Police station and then pulled out his wife’s severed head and held it up.

The man entered the police station, in the town of Ajjampura in the Chikkamagaluru district of southern India’s Karnataka state, brandishing a machete and saying he had murdered his wife, Roopa.

“This is my wife, sir. I gave her all the love I could,” he tells shocked police officers before one shouts: “Put it back inside!”

Satish replaces the head in the bag before telling cops that his wife was cheating on him and he had lost his temper after allegedly seeing her with her lover.

He also complains that Roopa had chosen his rival, named as Sunil, over him despite the fact the man was a manual worker with a criminal record.

Satish told cops that Roopa had taken out a loan for £3,170 and given the money to her lover.

Officers had to calm Satish down so they could begin taking his statement and launch a formal murder investigation.

Inspector Ramachandra Nayak said Satish had been remanded in police custody after showing officers where he had left the rest of his wife’s body.

Supt Annamalai said:

“Generally, in the Ajjampura area, whoever commits murder surrenders to the police but for someone to walk in and place a head on the sub-inspector’s table was something new for us.”

Violence against women in India is widespread and has deep roots.