A 10-year-old Indian girl was beheaded by her grandfather, who believed that sowing seeds mixed with her blood would yield a bumper crop.

The killing, spurred by age-old superstitions, took place on Sunday in the tribal region of Sambalpur, 450 kilometres west of Bhubaneshwar, the capital of Orissa state, the IANS news agency reported.

The barbaric crime was detected after the villagers caught the man, Rajesh Hembram, and handed him over to the police.

Hembram, who owned 1.2 hectares of farmland, planned to sow seeds mixed with the blood of his granddaughter on Monday on Akshaya Tritya, a day considered auspicious by Hindus, police said.

"He cut off his granddaughter Bernaka Kandulana's head with an axe in a room when nobody was at home and drained her blood into a pot," P.C. Nayak, a police inspector said.