An eight-year-old girl was found dead in Madhya Pradesh's Seoni district on Monday, three days after she went missing, police said.
The police suspect the girl was raped and murdered, and they have detained one person for questioning, an official said.
The minor girl left home to call her paternal grandfather living in the vicinity on Saturday night, but did not return home, leading her worried mother to lodge a missing person's complaint, said Superintendent of Police (SP) Ramji Shrivastava.
A police team and villagers launched a search for the girl, but failed to find her, he said.
The girl's body was eventually found in a forested area on Monday afternoon, said the SP.
“The condition of the body and her clothes prima facie suggested she was either raped or an attempt was made to sexually assault her. Only a post-mortem examination will determine if she was sexually assaulted before being murdered," he said.