The body of a 12-year-old girl, who was allegedly strangulated by her grandparents and uncle around 10 days back, was exhumed on Sunday after her parents filed a police complaint on Friday.

The police are in search of the three accused who have gone into hiding.

Sources said on September 17, Tazkera Khatun and Sahabuddhin Sheikh of Milangar-Kochpulur village under Harishchandrapur police station, had filed a police complaint, alleging their daughter Dolly Khatun had been murdered.

A police officer investigating the case said that according to the parents, they were away on some work on September 9, and on their return found Dolly dead at home.

“Mahabuddin Sheikh and Uzlefa Bibi, Sahabuddin’s parents (the girl’s grandparents), and Tarikul Islam, their younger son (the girl’s uncle), strangled the girl and claimed that she committed suicide, the parents said in the complaint,” said the officer.

The victim’s mother told the police that the relatives buried the body in a graveyard in a hurry and did not let them inform the police or send the body for an autopsy. “That’s why I suspected my daughter was killed. I became convinced when my brother-in-law Tarikul threatened to kill my younger daughter too,” Tazkera said.

She claimed that Sahabuddin, her husband, had bequeathed his land to his two daughters which the grandparents and uncle did not accept.

On Sunday, a police team went to the graveyard. The body was exhumed and sent to post mortem. “We are waiting for the post-mortem report. Searches are on for the accused,” said Sanjay Das, inspector-in-charge, Harishchandrapur police station.

As the news spread, angry residents demanded stringent punishment for the accused.

“It is disappointing that a girl had to lose her life at the hands of her grandparents for ancestral property. The police should find all the three accused,” said Hanif Sheikh, a schoolteacher and a local resident.