QUETTA: Police and other agencies are investigating the murder of a six-year-old girl of the Hazara community whose tortured body was found in a garbage heap last week.

Talking to reporters, the father of Sehar Batool said she had gone missing on Oct 28.

`My wife informed me that she was missing,` Ghulam Salchi Khan, who works as a gardener in an of fice, said. Her body was found in the garbage dump near his house.

He said Sehar had been strangled to death and there were red marks on the neck, face and other parts of her body. `I have no enmity with anyone,` he said, adding that he had been living in the cantonment area and had recently shifted to Zarghoon Colony.

An official of the Bijli Road police station said the girl had been strangled with a rope.

Additional Inspector General (Operations) Shahzada Sultan said the post-mortem report suggested that the cause of death was strangulation. He said the hyoid bone was found broken which suggested that a lot force had been used to strangle her and there was also possibility of hanging.

Human rights activist Huma Fouladi has alleged that the girl was sexually assaulted and tortured to death and a cleric was involved in the murder, but AIG Sultan said that `rape is not proven` Quetta police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema said the autopsy report had indicated attempted rape. He said a team of senior police and CIA officers was investigating the case.`No significant breakthrough has been made so far,` he said, adding that some suspects had been taken into custody for questioning but later allowed to go home.

Ghulam Salchi said Sehar was a class one student in a government school.

`We had not sent her to school on the day the incident took place because it was sports day,` he said, adding that on herrequesthe took her on around on his motorbike and dropped her at then house before going to office.

According to AFP, the Quetta police chief said there were a lot of bruises onthe girl`s body.

Balochistan police chief Amlash Khan said some potential suspects were being questioned.

The girl`s mother Bakhtawar Bibi said: `Sehar went to throw out the rubbish close to the house but did not come back, I went out to look for her, but could not find her.` A neighbour told her that her daughter was at the dump.

`She was already dead, with bleeding from her mouth and nose, while there were bruises all over her body, Bakhtawar Bibi said.