Raipur, Apr 5 (IANS): A mentally unstable man carried out a bloodbath in Chhattisgarh's impoverished tribal-dominated Balrampur district Thursday, axing to death nine girls and women aged between 2-65 years, police and eyewitnesses said.

The bodies of four female adults and five minors, were lying in a pool of blood for hours in the terror-hit Barhatola village under Samri police station, and the accused, Pandu Nageshia, 35, was tracked down when Balrampur District Collector C.R. Prasanna and Superintendent of Police G.S. Darro reached there with a police contingent.

"Its brutal killings by a man who is reportedly mentally unstable," Prasanna told IANS over phone from the village which comes under state's northern region, more than 400 km from Raipur.

"I am too in a state of shock after visiting the village and watching dead bodies scattered outside a house where the deceased belonging to two to three families had assembled as their male family members had gone out on daily work," he said.

Prasanna along with Darro found extremely difficult to console several poverty-hit tribal people whose innocent relatives were butchered.

Unfolding details of the shocking incident, Darro, quoting eye-witnesses, said Nageshia, who was armed with a sharp-edged weapon "tangia", suddenly went on a killing spree at around 1.30 p.m. and no one had an idea why he killed the nine - identified as Lalki Bai (60), Kusum Nageshia (4), Manju Nageshia (3), Sitamuni Bai (25), Priyanka (2), Machki Bai (65), Kalgi Bai (60), Sangeeta (10) and Sanjeeta (3).