A 12-year-old girl who was on her way to a wedding was kidnapped and raped before being brutally murdered with her head smashed against a boulder in a horrific attack in India.
The tribal girl was attacked and killed on Sunday, April 21, by unidentified assailants in the village of Deori Taluka, Gondia, Maharashtra.
The Class 6 student’s semi-naked body was found decomposing near an armed outpost in Ganutola.
Officers have been left searching for clues as they desperately attempt to track down the attacker who fled the scene.
Near the body of the little girl who had been missing since April 19, a blood-smeared boulder was found.
The corpse had injury marks on the head and cuts on the face and neck, reported Times of India.
Cops revealed the boulder had not been moved, suggesting the girl was raised before having her head and face smashed repeatedly against it.
“She’s likely to have resisted rape, triggering a violent reaction from perpetrators,” said an officer who is part of the investigation.
“This girl could have threatened to expose them or tried to raise an alarm,” they added.
The girl had allegedly been en-route to a wedding in her neighbourhood, but at around 8pm she was spotted riding on the the back of a bike with someone.
Villagers refused to identify the biker, according to local reports.
It comes as a seven-year-old girl’s body was also unearthed in a drain in Masuri, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, on Sunday, April 21.
The child’s body had been hidden from sight by a pile of bricks placed on top of it, as it was laid just 50metres away from her house.
An autopsy revealed that she had been sexually assaulted, before being killed, according to cops, who believe the attacker hit her on the head and dumped her body in the drain.
“The postmortem report has revealed that she suffered some injuries on the head, which resulted in her death,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police Vivek Yadav.
“The report also revealed that the girl was sexually assaulted, after which she was murdered.”
The little girl had been missing since Saturday evening, April 20, after she was last spotted by her family playing with other children.
“After it turned dark, her parents started looking for her when she didn’t come home,” said Yadav.
“They visited every house in the area but couldn’t find her. Then they approached the cops and filed a missing person’s complaint,” he added.
According to cops, four teams have been formed in a bid to catch the attacker.
“Police are also scanning CCTV cameras of the nearby areas for clues,” said Yadav.