Jessica Durando

USA TODAY

Surgeons in India extracted 40 knives from inside the body of a police officer during a rare, five-hour operation.

Surjeet Singh had swallowed the knives over several months.

"The patient told us that he suffered from an uncontrollable urge to consume knives," Jitendra Malhotra, a surgeon at Amritsar Corporate Hospital who operated on Singh last week, told Asian News International. "This was very unnerving, not witnessed something like this in my career as a doctor."

Singh sought medical care after having stomach pain and little appetite, Reuters reported. He is now in stable condition.

The doctors did not have information about Singh's diagnosis at first. Malhotra said an ultrasound showed a solid object in the shape of a cancer.

Singh had told the doctors that he swallowed 28 knives, but 40 were removed, Reuters reported.

"To ensure that there are no knives left, we did a metallic scan. What is astonishing is the fact is that the patient was eating the knives for the last two months," Malhotra told Asian News International.

Malhotra said Singh suffered from a psychological disorder. The police officer reportedly started to swallow them after recovering from a road accident.

“I met with an accident in Chandigarh and could not walk properly after that. I used to sit idle and started swallowing down knives,” Singh said, Reuters reported. “It pained a little.”