In a suspected case of rape and murder, the body of a seven-year-old girl, who went missing in a village in Etah, was recovered by the police from a mustard field on Sunday morning.

The victim’s family members alleged that she was raped before being killed, officials said.

Senior Superintendent of Police Rajesh Kumar Singh said prima facie it appeared that the girl was strangled to death. Her family members have alleged that she was raped before the murder, Singh added.

According to the SSP, information was received at the Kotwali Dehat police station on Saturday night that a seven-year-old girl was missing since 12 noon from her house in a local village.

Quoting the family members, Singh said the girl had gone out around 12 pm to play with her friends. After she did not return for a long time, her family members approached the police. A missing complaint was filed and a police team launched a hunt for the girl with the help of a dog squad, SSP added.

Following the trail of the dogs, the police recovered the girl’s body from a mustard field located near the village on Sunday, he said.

Four teams have been formed to uncover the incident.

The girl’s body was sent for post-mortem. The police are waiting for the report to confirm whether the victim was sexually assaulted or not.

Meanwhile, police arrested a man on Sunday for allegedly killing his 67-year-old father and 27-year-old adopted sister at their home in the Katra Ghulam Ali locality of Amroha city late on Friday.

The 42-year-old accused, Ishank Agarwal, has confessed to killing his father, Yogesh Chand Agarwal, and Srishti, whom the latter had adopted three years ago.

Ishank said he had a dispute over property with his father, who had registered half of his property in the name of Srishti.

“Srishti is the daughter of Yogesh’s brother-in-law,” Amroha’s Superintendent of Police Kunwar Anupam Singh informed reporters while giving details of the case on Sunday.

Yogesh Chand Agarwal was the district chief of the Amroha Vyapar Mandal and a patron of the Sewa Bharati, a wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

According to police, Ishank has set up a cardboard trading business and has settled in New Delhi with his wife, Mansi, for the last few years. He used to come to his parental home once or twice in a week and reached Amroha on Friday morning. Ishank filed a complaint of a double-murder at the Kotwali police station against unidentified assailants after the cremation of his father and adopted sister.

He informed the police that all the four in the family had dinner together around 11:30 pm on Friday and that he and his wife slept on the first floor while his father and adopted sister slept on the ground floor. He also said that neither he nor his wife could hear any voice during “the struggle his father and sister were having with unidentified killers”.

The police said their investigation revealed that an attempt was made to wipe out stains of blood from the room where the two were found dead. “Their throats were slit with a sharp weapon. We have found some blood stains at the staircase leading to the first floor where Ishank and his wife claimed they were sleeping at the time of incident. Fifteen CCTV cameras have been installed in the house but all were not working, which made us suspicious that anyone close to the family could be the killer. We took Ishank into custody on Saturday evening and after a few hours, he confessed to killing his father and the adopted sister,” the SP said.