The agitated woman, who was reportedly shouting "Allahu Akbar", was spotted pacing up and down outside a metro station in the northwestern part of the Russian capital, witness Alyona Kuratova told Dozhd TV, saying she was holding the head by its hair.
"I saw that it was indeed a head," she told the independent channel. "Maybe it was a child's head as they started whispering in the street."
She described scenes of chaos as police cars and ambulances began arriving at the scene, with several people yelling: "terror attack, terror attack."
"She yelled something."
The witness said she could not make out what the woman shouted but some media reported that she yelled "Allahu Akbar" -- Arabic for "God is greatest" -- and threatened to blow herself up.
LifeNews, a news service known for its close ties to law enforcement agencies, said that when police approached her for a document check, she pulled the head out of her bag and started yelling that she had killed a child.
Footage broadcast by Russian television showed several men approaching and overpowering the woman. As she fell down, an object she carried around rolled along the ground.
"According to preliminary information, the child's nanny -- a native of one of the Central Asian countries, born in 1977 -- waited until the parents left the apartment with their elder child and, guided by unknown motives, killed the little one, set the apartment on fire and left the scene," the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
State news agency TASS, citing a source, said: "The child's body was without the head. According to a preliminary version, the nanny carried away the head."
The Investigative Committee did not provide further details.
Interfax news agency, citing a law enforcement source, identified the woman as 38-year-old Gyulchekhra Bobokulova, a native of ex-Soviet majority-Muslim Uzbekistan.
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