A three-year-old girl has been kidnapped, raped, tortured, then beaten to death with a brick in India.
The girl, who has not been identified, went missing on Sunday after being lured away from her friends as they were playing outside their homes in a suburb of Delhi.
Her remains were discovered the following day inside an abandoned shop barely 300 yards from where she went missing.
The three-year-old was playing outside her home in Delhi on Sunday morning when police say 20-year-old Sunil Kumar lured her away, raped her, then murdered her (file image)
Police told the Hindustan Times that the girl was found in a pool of blood with bruises on her shoulders, waist, chest and back, indicating she had been tortured.
She had been raped, including with a wooden instrument, and suffered severe internal injuries.
Medical examiners say she was forced to endure the attack before being hit over the head with a brick, fracturing her skull.
She died from ‘the head injury and excessive internal bleeding’, examiners said.
Officers are now hunting for a 20-year-old labourer named Sunil Kumar, who had been visiting his mother in the city at the time, who they believe is responsible.
The girl’s relatives learned she had gone missing on Sunday after her friends said she left with a stranger who promised to buy her chocolate.
The attack happened in Gurugram, a suburb of Delhi which has seen 109 sexual attacks reported against children this year alone
They did not immediately call police and instead tried to find her themselves. Relatives eventually found her inside the shop the following morning.
Four bricks had been piled on top of her body and a plastic bag placed over her head in order to try and hide the remains.
She was naked, and her clothes were found near her body.
Kumar has been charged with murder, aggravated rape and crimes against a child, and four police teams are now hunting for him.
There were 106 cases of rape against children reported in the suburb of Gurugram alone this year, with 40 in September and October.