Police in Osaka have arrested a man and his wife for assaulting and confining their 16-year-old daughter.

According to police, Tomonori Sugimoto, 43, and his wife Yuka, 37, hit their daughter's face and arms with a metal rod at their home and in a car and confined her in a six-tatami-mat-sized room of their residence for 12 days from Oct 13-25, Fuji TV reported. She was given only one meal a day.

The suspects were quoted by police as saying they were upset with their daughter because she put on too much weight.

The girl told police her father had beaten her before and that she had left home to go and live with her grandmother in Saga Prefecture in August. However, her parents brought her back home on Oct 10 and started beating her in the car on the way home from the airport.

Police said that on Oct 25, while her parents were out, she used a fishing rod to pick the lock of her room and then called her grandmother in Saga for help. The grandmother called Saga police who, in turn, called Osaka police and they took the girl into protective custody on the night of Oct 25.

The girl weighed 45 kilograms when she was rescued.

© Japan Today