Father 'hacks his six children aged between one and seven to pieces with an axe and also murders their pregnant mother

Father 'hacks his six children aged between one and seven to pieces with an axe and also murders their pregnant mother' after he was accused of adultery in Russia 

• Oleg Belov is suspected of murdering his six children and pregnant wife
• Police officers broke through a window to find the bodies in the house
• The 51-year-old father was reportedly found in a mental hospital  
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• Russian police discovered the dismembered remains of six children killed with an axe after the alarm was raised when the youngsters failed to appear at kindergarten.

Officers broke in to the family flat through a window to find the dead youngsters - aged between one and seven - and the body of their pregnant mother in Nizhny Novgorod, east of Moscow.

All had been hacked to pieces with an axe and bundled into plastic bags, said police.

Locals said the father had been ex-communicated from the Seventh Day Adventists religious group for allegedly committing adultery, according to major Russian news website LifeNews. 

Shocking: The bodies of the six children were found inside the family flat along with the body of their pregnant mother

Suspect: Police suspect the children's father, Oleg Belov, may have been responsible for the horrific killings. Local reports claim he may have been found in a mental hospital last night. 

The children's 51 year old father, named as Oleg Belov, is suspected of killing his family at their home in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, 250 miles east of Moscow, said official sources.

The children were named as Alyona, seven, Fyodor, six, Sonya, five, Nikifor, three, Ilya, two, and Daria, one. 

Their mother was named as Zinaida, a lecturer in advanced mathematics at a local university.

Distraught: Grandmother Valentina Zaitseva, 69, raised the alarm to police after the children were not seen for a week

Horrific: The bodies were found inside the locked family home, with locals claiming they saw the father at the site

Russian police speaking outside the house said they believed the murder maybe linked to a custody battle over the children

The alert had been raised by the kindergarten and Zinaida's mother Valentina Zaitseva, 69, after the children were not seen for a week, after not attending classes since 25 July.

The Kremlin's children's ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said that it appeared the mother intended to deprive Belov of his paternal rights, barring him from raising the youngsters.

Police yesterday launched a murder probe with reports emerging last night that the father may have been found in a mental hospital. 

It is thought that the murdered mother may have been pregnant at her time of death 

The appalling killings took place in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, 250 miles east of Moscow

Neighbours claimed that the father had been seen at the flat, but left in an unknown direction. It is unclear when the sighting of the father took place.

NTV channel have reported that the murdered mother had been pregnant at the time of her death