A man crushed his three young daughters to death with stones as they slept in a remote mountain village, police said Friday.

Bhakta Bahadur Rumba killed the girls aged 7, 10 and 13 at their house in Faparbari village, Makwanpur, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of the capital, Katmandu, said police official Purna Chandra Joshi.

He said police detained Rumba, 35, and drove him to the nearest city, Hetauda, where he would be presented before a judge after the weekend.

Joshi said initial investigations and interviews with villagers suggested the father was mentally unstable. He picked up stones and crushed the heads of the girls on Friday morning as they slept in different rooms.

Rumba’s wife was away at the time attending a relative’s wedding.

Source: Associated Press; YahooNews