A 40-year-old Bangladeshi woman cut off a man's penis during an alleged attempted rape and took it to a police station as evidence, police in a remote part of Bangladesh said on Monday. The woman, a married mother of three, was attacked while she was sleeping in her shanty in Jhalakathi district, some 200 kilometres (120 miles) south of Dhaka.

"As he tried to rape her, the lady cut his penis off with a knife. She then wrapped up the penis in a piece of polythene and brought it to the Jhalakathi police station as evidence of the crime," police chief Abul Khaer said.

The woman has filed a case accusing the man had been harassing her for six months.

The severed penis has been kept at the police station and the rape suspect was undergoing treatment in hospital.