Mother's heart !...

'Mother cuts out the heart of her daughter, four, as she listens to recording of Koran in ritual killing'

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 12:38 PM on 18th December 2010

A mother has been arrested after a four year old girl was found stabbed to death with her heart and other organs cut out and strewn around her flat.

The 35-year-old woman was allegedly sitting in a her kitchen chanting verses of the Koran as her daughter's disembowelled corpse lay next to her.

The little girl's heart and other organs were found in different rooms around the flat in Clapton, east London.

Police suspect she she carried out the killing as a religious offering as she listened to the Muslim holy book on an MP3 player at full volume.

The mother, who is understood to have two teenage children of 14 and 16, has since been sectioned under the Mental Health Act and is in a secure unit.

The gruesome scene was discovered by the girl's father when he arrived home to the flat on Thursday to find his partner clutching a kitchen knife.

The man, believed to be a Muslim convert, dialled 999 and paramedics pronounced the girl dead at the scene. Police said next of kin have been informed.

One neighbour, who lives in the downstairs flat and asked not to be named, said: 'I was feeding my daughter her lunch at about 3pm and suddenly heard horrific screaming. It is shocking and so upsetting.'

He said the couple have lived in the flat for about a year.

A post-mortem examination will take place on Saturday at Poplar mortuary in east London.

The Metropolitan Police's Child Abuse Investigation Command is leading the murder inquiry. They are not believed to be looking for anybody else.

Yesterday another shocked resident, a mum in her 30s, said the mother always wore a black headscarf with a veil.

She added: 'Usually you could only see her eyes.

'I often heard shouting coming from the flat as she and a man argued.

'Their quarrels would become very heated.'

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