Bokaro, April 27: In a throw-back to medieval times, a security officer employed by Bokaro Steel Plant chopped off the head of a milkman last night, merely because he had been an hour late in milking the officer's cows.

Petrified neighbours, warned not to interfere, watched as Jaiprakash Singh (55) held the milkman Upendra Yadav (32) and ordered his sons to chop off the head. The dutiful sons obliged.

The sensational crime caused a commotion and hundreds of agitated people stormed the officer's residential quarter. But by then the officer and his sons had fled, leaving behind the officer's wife.

When the older son, Kaushal (26), who had actually used the sword, was found hiding in a neighbour's house this morning and arrested, the mob surrounded the sector IX police station, demanding an eye for an eye.

Tension simmered as civil and police officers tried to control the situation. The commotion continued till late in the afternoon with the mob finally demanding adequate compensation and a job for the widow. The security officer and his younger son, Chhotu Singh (22) are absconding.

Upendra Yadav's wailing widow recalled that the officer reached the hutment, located barely 50 yards from the officer's quarter, late in the night in an inebriated condition. Her husband, who was ailing, was asleep on a cot when the officer woke him up, tied a towel round his neck and dragged him out. The widow and neighbours kept pleading with him but the officers warned onlookers not to interfere. Horrified neighbours watched as the officer and his younger son held the poor victim down while the elder son brought down the sword on his neck.

The widow, left with three children below the age of 12, said her husband had been reaching the officer's house late because of his own illness and also because their eldest son was not keeping well.

The security officer, said neighbours, is short-tempered, foul-mouthed and arrogant. "He always boasted of being a Rajput and a landlord and claimed it his right to keep swords at home," recalled one.

Even the officer's eldest son, Kaushal, has a criminal past and had shot a man dead a few years ago. He was released on bail late last year.