KARACHI: Pakistani men bury yesterday the body of a six-year-old girl who was raped and murdered. - AFP

NEW DELHI/KARACHI: The body of a seven-year-old girl who had been raped and strangled was found in India yesterday, compounding outrage over a series of horrific sexual attacks on women or girls. Separately, at least one man was killed and several injured in Pakistan's biggest city Karachi yesterday when a riot broke out in protest at the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl.

Nationwide protests have been held in India in the past week over the gang-rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Jammu and Kashmir state. In the latest case, the child's body was found on a building site early yesterday, hours after she went missing from a wedding in the Etah district of Uttar Pradesh state.

Police said a neighbor who was putting up tents for the wedding had been detained on suspicion of luring the girl to the secluded building. Etah superintendent of police Akhilesh Chaurasia told AFP the man fled but was arrested within hours. "We have charged him with the rape and murder of the child. We are awaiting the post-mortem reports but prima facie it looks she was strangled to death," Chaurasia said.

The authorities and police face mounting pressure over a series of sexual assaults, including the Jammu and Kashmir case. That killing was in January but outrage has mounted as details of the rape emerged. Police say she was drugged and raped for days at a Hindu temple before being beaten to death. Eight men, all Hindus, have been arrested for the crime. Police said the accused targeted the girl because they wanted to drive her nomadic Muslim tribe out of the Hindu-dominated region.

Two Jammu and Kashmir state ministers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) resigned after they attended rallies organized to defend the accused. Some activists have accused the party of siding with Hindu groups demanding the release of the arrested men.

The BJP government has also faced criticism after one of its legislators in Uttar Pradesh state was arrested last week for the alleged rape of a 17-year-old woman.

The woman's father died in police custody as he agitated for the authorities to take up the case. A 2014 UN report said one in three rape victims in India was a minor.

Nearly 11,000 cases of child rape were reported in India in 2015, according to the National Crime Records Bureau's latest figures.

In Karachi, crowds took to the streets after the body of the victim was discovered late Monday, blocking a main road in the western suburb of Orangi Town, where they hurled stones at riot police. "One man has died because of a gunshot," said Aamir Farooqi, the police chief in the district. "We are investigating whose bullet caused that death." A second police official confirmed the figure.

Relatives of the girl and hundreds of residents were angry over what they say has been police laxity in the case. A medical report said the child had been sexually assaulted and strangled. As the demonstration boiled over, police fired in the air over the crowd and attacked demonstrators with batons. Two protesters suffering from gunshot wounds were brought to nearby Abbasi Shaheed hospital, where one died later. Another senior police officer said 10 to 15 police officials were injured during the violence.

The rioting comes months after six-year-old Zainab Fatima Ameen was raped and killed in eastern Pakistan's city of Kasur, sparking nationwide outrage and soul-searching over how the country fails to protect its most vulnerable. In February a Pakistani court handed down four death sentences on the man charged with the killing. - AFP