KARACHI: A seven-year-old boy, who had been missing from North Karachi since Jan 7, was found dead in the underground water tank of the residential apartment where he lived, police said on Saturday.

While the police are unclear whether it was an accident or a case of murder, doctors who performed the autopsy said that his death may not have been accidental as the body showed multiple signs of injuries.

On January 7, Mohammed Sarim had gone to a madressah from his home in North Karachi but did not return. His family first lodged a missing report and then an FIR under Section 364-A (kidnapping or abducting a person under the age of 14) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

On Saturday, the Bilal Colony police saidthat the body was recovered from the water tank of Anam Apartments.

SSP-Central Zeeshan Shafiq Siddiqi told Dawn that on the day Sarim went missing, the police, along with the family, had checked the same water tank but could not find the child, apparently because of the high water level in it.

However, as the area had been facing a water shortage for the past two to three days, the water level in the tank had dropped, the SSP said, adding that the valve operator noticed a foul smell emanating from the tank, and upon searching, the body was found floating inside.

The corpse was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for a post-mortem examination.

Police Surgeon Summaiya Syed told Dawn that the body, brought at the hospital`s medico-legal section for an autopsy, bore multiple injuries.

She added that swabs and samples had been collected and the cause of death would be determined after further analysis.

However, when pressed about the cause of the death, Dr Syed stated that while she could not provide a conclusive opinion yet, the `presence of injuries, particularly around the neck, suggested that it was not an accidental death`.

When contacted, DIG-West Irfan Ali Baloch said that it would be too early to call the incident a homicide.

He said that the water tank was not properly covered and that may have caused the boy to fall inside if he was playing nearby.Investigators, he said, had posed four specific questions to the medical team as to whether the child was tortured or subjected to a sexual assault, the time of death, and whether there were signs of strangulation.

He hoped that the doctors` responses would clear the situation.

Local residents were shocked to know that the child`s body was found in the underground tank that had been checked twice by the police.

The residents also expressed their anger over the union of the apartment complex for failing to properly cover the water tank.

Footage posted on social media showed enraged women berating an MPA of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan who came to the apartment complex to express his condolence.

Special body formed for two abducted boys In a separate development, the police claimed to have made progress in the case of two boys five-year-old Aliyan, and six-yearold Ali Raza missing from the Garden area for the past couple of days.

DIG-South Syed Asad Raza told Dawn that a Special Investigation Team, consisting of two SSPs and two DSPs, had been formed to investigate the case.

He said two suspects had been identified using facial recognition technology, and leads were being followed to make arrests.

The two boys, both friends and neighbours, were abducted by a couple riding a motorcycle when they were playing outside their homes on Siddiq Wahab Road in Garden West on Jan 14.