The finding of the mutilated body of a eight-year-old near the Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Umashankar Gupta's residence in Bhopal has sparked off a controversy.

The recovery of the mutilated body of a missing eight-year-old girl in Bhopal has become a bone of contention between political parties after it was found near the residence of Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Umashankar Gupta.

The mutilated body of the eight-year-old girl was found in the TT Nagar area of Bhopal, in the debris of dismantled houses.

The girl's head appeared to have been crushed by a stone while rest of her body seems to have been damaged by street dogs, police said. There was no confirmation if the girl had been sexually assaulted.

Her mother identified the victim by her clothes, police said.

"We got a call in the morning about a dead body. When we reached, a leg was eaten up by a stray dog, making it virtually impossible to identify her but her mother identified the body," Anshuman Singh, Superintendent of Police, Bhopal (South) said.

The girl, who lived in a nearby slum, had gone to attend a public function, the Bhopal Utsav Mela, on Sunday with her parents when she had gone missing. Her parents had filed a missing persons case with the police.

Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh has attacked the government over the fact that it was found near the minister's residence.

"It is disgusting that the body of an 8-year-old girl was found near Mr Gupta's residence," Singh said in a statement issued today.

Digvijay said the incident was an example of the manner in which the law and order situation in the state had collapsed.

with inputs from PTI