A British auction house has cancelled the sale of a tribal skull after Indian politicians demanded it be returned.

The Swan in Tetsworth, Oxfordshire, had planned a sale of shrunken heads and skulls from tribal societies around the world, including a specimen valued at £5,000 which was taken from the formerly headhunting Naga people of north-east India in the 19th century.

However, Neiphiu Rio, the chief minister of Nagaland state, branded the sale an act of “dehumanisation” and called on the Indian government to intervene to “ensure the auction of the human remains of our people is halted”.

He had asked the government to instruct the Indian high commission in London to take steps to ensure the auction did not go ahead.