AMRITSAR: Police constable Surjeet Singh, lies under a table displaying the 40 knifes removed from his stomach in a hospital in Amritsar, India yesterday. — AP

NEW DELHI: An Indian policeman who spent two months swallowing knives and had 40 of them surgically removed said yesterday that "spiritual powers" made him do it. The father of two underwent a successful five-hour operation to remove the knives from his stomach in the northern city of Amritsar after complaining to doctors of severe abdomen pain. "I don't know why I did it but there was some spiritual power behind it," the 42-year-old said from Amritsar in Punjab state, declining to be named.

"It started in June when I swallowed the first knife and I enjoyed the feeling. It soon became a habit," he said. Doctors said they initially thought he was suffering from a tumor after body scans showed a large solid mass. But on further investigation, they discovered dozens of folding knives with metal and wooden handles and measuring up to 18 centimeters unfolded. "We immediately prepared him for surgery and removed the knives. There was bleeding as some of them were unfolded," Rajinder Rajan, one of the surgeons at Corporate Hospital said.

Rajan said he suspected the patient, who told doctors he passed two more knives in his stools, was suffering from depression. Although recovering well from Friday's surgery, he would undergo a psychological assessment before being discharged from the hospital, Rajan said. Doctors were not ruling out the possibility that he had pica disorder in which the sufferer feels compelled to consume non-edible things. But the man said he would not do it again. "I consumed a knife a day for about two months. I never felt it was going to harm me but when it pained, I came to the hospital. "I will not repeat it. I am glad they saved my life and I want to go back to my family."

India cows get glow-in-the-dark horns to stop crashes

In another development, Police in central India are sticking glow-in-the-dark strips on the horns of stray cattle to prevent motorists from crashing into the animals as they wander across roads at night, an officer said yesterday. Following a spate of road accidents, traffic police in one district of Madhya Pradesh state have stuck orange radium reflective bands on the horns of 300 cows and bulls to help drivers spot them. Stray cattle are a major traffic menace in India, with hundreds of bovines roaming freely on roads across the country. "Many drivers injured themselves or killed the cattle after running over them at night," Kailash Chauhan, traffic police inspector for Balaghat district said.

"There was an urgent need to prevent such accidents," he said. Because of the success of the scheme, officers say they now plan to buy permanent radium paint to cover cows' horns, as the plastic bands only last for a few weeks. Authorities have also asked farmers to fix glow-in-the-dark bands on their own cattle to help them be seen more easily. In 2015 more than 550 people were killed in India in accidents involving stray animals, according to road ministry figures. A World Health Organization report in 2013 said more than 231,000 people die on India's deadly roads each year.- Agencies