KANCHANABURI - Police are hunting the murderer of a young girl found dead with signs of rape in a rubber plantation on Monday.
Seven-year-old Kasama, known as A-ngun, was reported missing by her parents on Saturday afternoon.
She disappeared between their home and a nearby grocery store where she went to buy some sweets, in Ban Thi Khrong of tambon Prang Play in Sangkhla Buri district. The shop owner said Kasama bought 30-baht's worth of candies.
Late Monday morning a latex collector found the missing girl's body, lying face down among the rubber trees about 200 metres from Highway 323 (Thong Pha Phum-Sangkhla Buri). She was wearing a black T-shirt and pink pants.
Police said there were bruises on the girl's neck, indicating she had been strangled, and signs of physical assault on the body, including two wounds to her chin. Her face appeared to have been hit with a hard object. Her pants were torn and there were signs she had been raped.
Investigators have already questioned three monks and a driver at a temple 700 metres from where the child's body was found. Police took their fingerprints and also examined the temple's pickup truck.
The police investigation was continuing.
