india

Updated: Jul 03, 2019 08:10 IST

A month after the barbaric killing of a three-year-old girl in Tappal area of Aligarh in Western Uttar Pradesh, the mutilated body of an eight-year-old girl was found on Tuesday in a village in Kasganj district, police said.

The girl had been missing from her house since Monday. Police said the girl’s face was mutilated and after she was murdered with a heavy object.

Police said the child’s body was recovered from a house in the same village and an old lady present in the house was taken into custody but her grandson, a minor, was missing.

Police have sent the body for post mortem after deputy inspector general of police (DIG - Aligarh range), Preetinder Singh visited the spot.

“The post mortem report could help in solving the murder mystery. It is too early to say that acid was used to mutilate her face,” said additional superintendent of police (ASP) of Kasganj, Pavitra Mohan Tripathi.

Police have launched a manhunt for the old woman’s grandson, who is a relative of the deceased, Tripathi said.

Earlier, the father of the girl had registered a complaint after she went missing while playing near her house, police said. The child’s family said they first searched for her and then filed a police complaint.

On Tuesday, during the search for the child the family members and villagers were alarmed by the foul smell coming from the old lady’s house. They then informed the police who discovered the body hidden in the house.

In the Tappal incident last month, a three-year-old was brutally killed and her mutilated body was thrown in a garbage dump. Four people were arrested by Tappal police in the case that shook the nation and almost took a communal turn before police controlled the situation.

Three other cases rocked Uttar Pradesh last month. A 12-year-old girl was dragged from her house and allegedly gang-raped by six men in Kushinagar district, a 15-year-old was allegedly raped by a teacher inside a seminary in Kanpur, and the unclothed body of seven-year-old girl was found in a field in Jalaun.