Representative image of a police officer.
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Lakhimpur Kheri (UP): A six-year-old girl was mauled to death by an animal in a village here on Monday morning and her partially eaten body was found in a field, officials said.
It is suspected that a hyena or wolf killed the girl, they said.
The girl was sleeping with her parents in their hut in Naudhan village in the Shardanagar police station area. However, when her parents woke up, they found her missing. They launched a search for the girl and found her partially eaten body in a nearby sugarcane field, the officials said.
Police and Shardanagar forest range officials were informed about the incident and they rushed to the spot, they said.
Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), South Kheri, Sanjay Biswal said the girl was attacked by a wild animal but it was not a tiger or leopard.
"The presence of a leopard or a tiger has not been reported in the area nor the pugmarks of a big cat have been found at the spot," Biswal told PTI.
'Also, the pattern of attack does not match that of a big cat. It is likely that some other animal like a hyena or wolf attacked the girl,' he said.
The DFO said cameras have been installed to monitor the movement of wild animals in the area and find out which animal attacked the girl.
Police said the body has been sent for post-mortem examination.