The body of an eight-year-old boy, who was kidnapped and allegedly raped before being murdered, was found in Karachi's FB Industrial Area, prompting his relatives to block the main road in protest, police said on Friday.

A suspect who allegedly killed the child was also arrested from the same area.

The victim, aged between seven to eight years, had gone missing in Shafiq Colony, Block-22 of Federal B Area, at around 6:30pm on Thursday, the area's Station House Office Farrukh Shaharyar said.

He said the family did not lodge a missing report. Instead, announcements were made from mosques in the area around 10:30pm.

Read: Why sexual abuse of children remains widely prevalent

At about 12-12:30am, residents spotted a man who was carrying something in a cloth bag (made out of a bedsheet). They got hold of him and discovered the boy’s body in the bag, according to the officer.

In the meantime, around two dozen relatives and neighbours of the victim also reached the scene. They neither informed police nor handed over the suspect to authorities.

The SHO said they reportedly held a 'jirga’ to settle the issue. However, an assistant sub-inspector of police, Zakir Naeem, who lived in the area came to know about the incident and informed Madadgar-15.

Police rushed to the spot, took the suspect into custody and sent the boy's body to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital to fulfil legal formalities at around 1:30am.

Quoting doctors, SHO Shaharyar said there were no apparent injury marks on his body. However, some bruises were seen on the child's neck.

The doctors reserved the cause of death for the chemical examiner’s report. They told investigators that the boy had been subjected to sexual assault.

Police registered a case against the held suspect on the complaint of the victim’s father on charges of murder and rape.

During the initial probe, the suspect at times admitted to having raped and killed the boy but at other times denied doing so, the SHO said.

SHO Shaharyar said that police had obtained information from the area that revealed that the suspect had also been involved in sodomy cases in the past.

The suspect was stated to be a neighbour of the victim.

On Friday, relatives of the boy while carrying his coffin protested on the main road near Shafiq Mor and demanded strict punishment for the arrested suspect. As a result of the protest, traffic moving from Nagan Chowrangi to Sohrab Goth was diverted to alternative routes.

In a similar incident, the torched body of a minor girl was recovered earlier this month from Karachi's Old Sabzi Mandi area, two days after she was reported to have gone missing.

Police had said five-year-old Marwah had been kidnapped and raped before being murdered and torched.

The incident had angered residents of the area, who had staged a protest on the main University Road after her burial.

A report by the NGO Sahil had revealed in March that a total of 2,846 child abuse cases were reported from across the country in 2019, with data showing that more than eight children suffered some form of abuse every day in Pakistan last year.