A four-year-old girl was found sexually assaulted and murdered in Mahim on Thursday morning.

According to the police, the victim belongs to a pavement dweller family and used to stay with her parents outside Razzak Manzil in Mahim. When the girl’s mother woke up around 4 a.m. on Thursday, she did not find her daughter beside her. The couple approached the police and a complaint of kidnapping was registered with the Mahim police at 7.30 a.m..

“Even as multiple teams were fanned looking for the victim, we received a call at 9.30 a.m. about a minor girl’s body being found in some shrubbery outside a residential building not far from where the family stays. The victim, who was in a semi-nude state, was taken to Sion Hospital, where she was declared dead before admission. The parents identified her at the morgue,” an officer with the Mahim police said.

The police started making inquiries with the security guard who found the body and residents of the building and other buildings in the locality. “We have found closed circuit television camera footage of a furniture outlet in the area, which shows a man carrying the girl around 3.30 a.m. We are trying to apprehend the suspect,” the officer said.

Meanwhile, medical examination confirmed that the victim had been sexually assaulted before being strangled.

Mumbai Police spokesperson DCP Manjunath Singe said, “An offence of kidnapping, sexual assault and murder under the Indian Penal Code along with relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act has been registered.”

The police are currently picking up other pavement dwellers and repeat offenders with a history of child sexual abuse to check on their movements over the last 24 hours. The Unit V of the Crime Branch is also conducting parallel inquiries.