A 73-year-old Austrian man is accused of imprisoning his daughter for 24 years and fathering seven children, police officials said, AFP reports.

Josef Fritzl was arrested on Sunday and policemen are currently searching the house at Amstetten in eastern Austria. His daughter, Elisabeth Fritzl was kept in rooms in the cellar where the ceiling was just 1.70 meters. The 42-year-old woman told police her father started drugging her in August 1984 and kept her in the cellar of the family home, abusing her for over two decades.

Fritzl’s incestuous relationship with his daughter allegedly produced seven children, who are now between 5 and 19 years old. They were also kept in the cellar. When one of them, now 19, was admitted to hospital in critical condition, the horrific abuse case that stunned Austrians became known.

The Oesterreich tabloid featured a six-page special report on what it depicted as “the worst crime of all time.” “How can this happen here?” asked Die Presse. “Amstetten is in a state of shock,” Mayor Herbert Katzengruber wrote on the town's website. “Our thoughts and feelings are with the victims,” he added. The Kronen-Zeitung newspaper described Fritzl as a keen fisherman, popular among neighbors and locals, but a “monster, a brutal tyrant” in the cellar of his own home.

According to ORF national television, the mother and five children are currently in hospital and they are all being treated by a team of psychologists. Elisabeth Fritzl was described as “very disturbed” and having trouble talking to police about her ordeal. However, she managed to tell investigators her mother knew nothing about the sexual abuse she had endured since the age of 11.

Fritzl lived upstairs with his wife, Rosemarie, who police said had no idea about her husband’s other family living in the cellar.