Olga Gileva grave
Yuriy Golovin is believed to have accessed Olga Gileva 's grave Social media screengrab

A mourning boyfriend dug up and burned his dead teenage girlfriend's grave because he believed she was haunting him five years after she hung herself in Kurgan, Russia, police say.

Yuriy Golovin, 30, is accused of digging up his former lover's resting place in Menschikovo village, 1,000 miles east of Moscow.

He is reported to have claimed that Olga Gileva's spirit was stalking him and decided to set fire to her coffin on the advice of a local sorceress, the Daily Mail reported.

Gileva was just 17 when she took her own life by hanging in 2012. She is reported to have become distressed when she was moved to an orphanage from foster care.

Police said the casket was exhumed with the help of a 23-year-old friend. Pictures of one of the two men lying on the earth-covered casket were shared on social media, according to reports.

The man who uploaded the pictures told local reporters that Golovin had intended to set fire to the grave to banish her haunting spectre.

He said that Golovin was terrified as a result of "constantly seeing Olga in his dreams" and "went to a sorceress and was advised to get her body out of her grave and burn it".

"[The accomplice] told me that he was asked by this girl's boyfriend [Golovin] to dig the grave," the uploader added.

The grave-diggers could face five years in jail after detectives opened an investigation into their alleged exploits. They were alerted to the incident by the shocking image shared online.

It is not known if Golovin and his accomplice did burn the coffin having accessed the grave. It is also not known if Golovin has stopped being pestered by the ghost of the teenage Gileva.

Illegal grave digging takes place around the world for a number of reasons, encompassing both the spiritual and the perverted.

Earlier this year, IBTimes UK reported that albino corpses were being dug up in Tanzania because locals believed their body parts are imbued with magical properties.