A convicted cannibal has been arrested on suspicion of eating a newborn boy after a police raid found a child's head at his home in Pakistan.

Police raided Mohammad Arif, 35 and his 30 year old brother Mohammad Farhan's home, in the Dariya Khan, a town 180 miles south of Islamabad, after neighbours complained about the stink of rotting flesh.

The pair were jailed in 2011 after stealing a woman's corpse from her grave. They admitted to chopping off her limbs and using them for meat curry. Police said the pair had dug up, and eaten over 100 corpses from the local graveyard.

As Pakistan has no law against cannibalism, Arif was charged with public order offences and desecrating a dead body, for which he served two years, in a case which shocked the country. Both brothers were married, but their wives deserted them before the 2011 case.

Ameer Abdullah Khan, Superintendent of Police in Darya Khan, said: "we raided the house on Monday morning and found the head of a young boy.

"We have arrested one of the brothers, Mohammad Arif, and are conducting raids for the arrest of the other brother."

Police are searching local graves for signs of disturbance. The identity of the child is not yet known.