Junior doctor beheaded by boyfriend after she refused to marry him

A junior doctor was beheaded by her boyfriend after she refused to marry him, police say. The boyfriend then tried to take his own life but failed.

26-year-old Shyngys Bekenov, a teacher,

proposed to his 21-year-old girlfriend Nazerke Bekzhanova, who had recently graduated from medical university in Kazakhstan. But Nazerke refused to accept the proposal because her parents did not approve of him, it is believed.

Angered by her rejection, Shyngys severed his girlfriend's head as they sat in his car. He then tried but failed to end his own life by stabbing himself in the abdomen after writing a suicide note asking that they should be buried

together, according to police. His note claimed he had beheaded the woman after she told him she would marry him, it was reported.

Shyngys Bekenov has been detained in hospital in a "grave but stable" condition with knife wounds. He faces a charge of murder with a minimum sentence of 15 years.