An eight-year old boy was murdered after being subjected to torture in Karachi’s Ittehad Town, police said on Thursday.

Ittehad Town SHO Shakeel Shervani said that the boy, Sudais Islam, had gone to visit his maternal grandmother on Wednesday.

That evening, he left the home to go to a nearby shop and never returned.

On Thursday, his body was recovered from an empty plot near Khyber Chowk in Baldia Town’s Mohammed Khan Colony.

The body was shifted to Civil Hospital, where doctors confirmed that Sudais was subjected to physical torture as there were stab wounds on his neck.

SHO Shervani said that the family had not lodged a missing persons report at the police station; however an investigation was now underway in the murder case.

This is the second case of a minor’s body turning up in a deserted area after the child went missing.

On August 16, the body of a five-year-old boy, who went missing two days prior, was found in a garbage dump in Gulshan-i-Hadeed, Steel Town SHO Ghulam Mujtaba Bajwa had told Dawn

The boy, Subhan Khalil, had left his home alone on Aug 14 for an Independence Day rally. However, he did not return home, the SHO had said.

The family had lodged a report regarding his disappearance at the police station. His relatives and police had been looking for him when they spotted the body in a garbage dump behind the ‘Kashana’ building in Gulshan-i-Hadeed.

The body was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal formalities.

Doctors at the health facility said that the body had lain in the dump for around two days.

Additional Police Surgeon Dr Kaleem Shaikh of the JPMC had said that the boy was slaughtered, as there were wounds on the neck. Besides, there were also some injury marks on the chest, he had added.

The area SHO had said that the police were treating it as a murder case. Some seven people had been detained for questioning.