London, May 6 (IANS): An Indian-origin man has been charged with murder after he walked into a police station and admitted to assaulting and killing his 77-year-old wife in east London, police said.

Tarsame Singh, 79, appeared before the Barkingside Magistrates' Court on Thursday, and has been charged with the murder of 77 year-old Maya Devi, the Metropolitan Police said.

After Singh handed himself into a police station near the couple's home in Hornchurch, East London, on Tuesday evening, officers and paramedics rushed to the scene and found Devi with severe head injuries.

"She was pronounced dead a short while later at the scene," the police statement said, adding that her "next of kin are aware and continue to be supported by specially trained officers".

According to Daily Mail, Singh ran the post office along with his wife in nearby Rainham for many years before recently retiring.

Both Singh and Devi, parents of a son and two daughters, are originally from India but had been living in Britain for more than 50-years, the report said.

Devi, who was supposed to go on a vacation to Lanzarote next week, was a regular at the Havering Asian Social and Welfare Association (HASWA) community centre, where she practised Yoga and met friends for lunch.

"I can't believe this has happened and that she has gone. I saw her just a few hours before her death, it doesn't seem real that I won't see her again," Devi's friend Nirmala Leal told Daily Mail.

Leal said she had spoken to Devi a day before the muder, and she seemed to be in a good mood.

The three-floor end terrace home of the couple has been cordoned off by police.