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A young girl was raped by her uncle and brothers before being strangled and beheaded using a sickle, police in India say.

Her father first raised the alarm when the girl failed to return from school in Sagar in Madhya Pradesh on March 14.

The youngster's body was found dumped in a field outside a village on the same day she was reported missing to police.

Her blood-stained clothes and the weapon were found close to the scene and a post-mortem showed that the girl had been raped before her death.

Police grew suspicious after the uncle blamed the killing on a man with whom he was locked in a bitter land dispute.

Further questioning revealed the family's alleged role in the killing.

It emerged she had been taken to her uncle's home and gang-raped after finishing a school exam.

She was then allegedly strangled by an aunt after bravely threatened to tell police about the rape.

A senior police officer says the uncle and brother are now in custody and said they are now on the lookout for the second brother.

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

Amit Sanghi told NDTV: "Our two senior officers collected all evidence and recorded the statements of the family members.

"When everything was pieced together, we found that she was raped and murdered by her brothers and uncle.

"We arrested the uncle and one of the brothers."

The sickening sex attack is just the latest grisly murder of a child in India.

(Image: REX/Shutterstock)

Earlier this year, a man raped, killed and skinned a girl after her mother rejected his advances, police have said.

The 27-year-old man visited the four-year-old's mother at her home in Khopoli town in Maharashtra, India.

After taking the girl and gagging her at his home, the suspect is thought to have sexually assaulted and then killed her.

The man then severed the girl's head with a kitchen knife and dumped her torso about 300m behind the house.