NEW DELHI: A man bludgeoned his 18-year-old daughter to death in northwest Delhi during an argument over her hanging out with boys and spending time in malls.

Police said the murder took place "in the heat of the moment" after the girl had returned home from a park at 10.30pm. The accused, Vishnu Bahadur Thapa , 53, a Nepali national who came to the capital four years ago, told the cops that he was fed up with his daughter's ways and the two would often get into fights.

Thapa, a mason, had recently changed his residence, moving to Begumpur in Rohini, in the hope that his daughter Shanti would stop meeting neighbourhood boys. But when she again returned late on the night of July 5, he started admonishing her.

"Shanti became furious and picked a piece of brick to hit him. In the fit of anger, Thapa hit her on the nose which left the girl bleeding. As she bent over, he hit her on the head with a stone and beat her with a stick," B S Jaiswal, deputy commissioner of police (outer) said.

The girl collapsed and died on the spot. After some time, he wrapped her body in a bedsheet spread on the floor by her daughter for sleeping, lifted the body on his shoulders and threw it on the pavement near a vacant house, police said.

The police arrested Thapa after the girl's body was found at a DDA plot on July 8. "After identifying the girl, the family was asked to join investigations. During sustained interrogation, Thapa confessed that his daughter Shanti had at many instances turned violent when he tried to stop her from talking to the boys of colony," said Karunakaran, additional DCP (Outer). Thapa had brought his family to Delhi from Palpa in Nepal three years ago.

"Thapa told us that a number of locals had told him about his daughter's activities and advised him to keep her 'under control'. He was very tense over this," Jaiswal said.