A 7-year-old girl was murdered in the Ramgarh police station area of Dumka district, around 317 km from the state capital, and a police officer said the child had most likely been raped.

The girl’s body had been buried to hide the evidence.

The girl had gone to her grandfather’s house, around a kilometre from her home, on February 5. In the afternoon the same day, she went to visit a fair near her grandfather’s house.

When she did not return till 8pm, the family started searching for her.

They searched for her through the night and also all day on February 6, but they could not find her.

On Friday afternoon, the family went to the Ramgarh police station and registered a missing-person report for the child.

On Friday afternoon, some children of another village Kusumdih, about a kilometre from her grandfather’s house, saw an unusual pile of mud when they went to the fields to graze their cattle.

The children looked closer and saw the face of a child sticking out from the mud.

They informed other villagers, who rushed to the spot.

Later, the father identified the body of his daughter from the clothes she was wearing.

Ramgarh police station in-charge (OC) Rajiv Prakash, two other police officials Pankaj Kumar and Prem Prakash Choubey, and Vijay Kumar Thakur, a revenue employee deputed by the block development officer, reached the spot.

The body was taken out and sent for post-mortem. Later, the body was handed over to the family.

OC Prakash said the child had most likely been raped and then murdered.

“The body was buried to destroy evidence,” the OC said.

According to the villagers, the culprit must have been someone the child knew.

Police have registered a case based on the grandfather’s statement and are trying to identify the killer.