A special team has been formed to investigate the rape and murder of the child in Rajasthan.

Highlights A special team has been formed to investigate the incident

Police said the girl went missing on Friday

Police found her body some 200 metres away from her home

A seven-year-old girl was raped and strangled in Rajasthan. Her body was found in a field near her house last evening. The incident took place in Jhalawar district, 340 km from capital Jaipur.

Police said the girl went missing on Friday when she was playing outside her home. When she didn't return home, her parents approached the police the next morning and registered a complaint. After a search, by Saturday evening, the police found her body some 200 metres away from her home. At dusk, her body was taken in an ambulance to a hospital.

A special team has been formed to investigate the incident.

"The post-mortem has been done. It has been established that she was raped and then strangled... We have called a forensic team, a cyber expert and a dog squad from Kota. We are trying to solve the case as soon as possible and arrest the culprit," Anand Sharma, the most senior police officer in Jhalawar. A special team has been formed to investigate the incident.

The family performed the last rites of the girl after the autopsy.

"She had a roti at around 6 in the evening and stepped out to play. My elder daughter went back inside. Later, when she went out, she couldn't find her (the 7-year-old)," the girl's father said.

This is the second rape case being reported in Jhalawar in the last five months.

In February earlier this year, a six-year-girl, who had gone missing from outside her home, was found raped and murdered in an agriculture field. Last week, a 65-year-old man, a retired railways employee, allegedly molested a teenage girl in a village in Jhalawar district.

The Jhalawar rape and murder prompted the Rajasthan Congress president Sachin Pilot to blame the Vasundhara Raje government for "poor" law and order in the state. "Cases of rape are on the rise due to negligence of the government. Criminals are getting a conducive environment in the state due to the poor law and order situation," he said in a statement.

(With inputs from ANI and PTI)