RAWALPINDI, Nov 11: A seven-year-old daughter of a housemaid was allegedly murdered after being molested by her cousin in Malot Kaswal, a Gujar Khan village, on Thursday night, the victim's family and police said.

Police said the housemaid, mother of three, left her only daughter at the house of her late husband's elder brother as she had to attend a marriage ceremony.

On her return, she found her daughter missing from the house. She was told that she had gone with her cousin to buy some sweets from a nearby grocery shop. After waiting for sometime, she started searching for her daughter. Dawn

Ghazanfar Ali, the uncle of the little girl, told on telephone that after a brief search they found her smashed body lying in a ditch and her cousin was standing nearby.

He alleged: “The cousin first molested her then stoned her to death as her clothes were stripped off and face smashed by stoning.” He said: “It was awful for her mother when she discovered her little daughter's smashed body lying in a pool of blood.”

Immediately after her body was discovered, the accused, in his 16, was overpowered and handed over to the local police.

The little girl was a nursery class student at a local school.

Her father who was a brick kiln worker died last year. She was laid to rest at a local graveyard on Friday morning and a large number of villagers attended her funeral. —Staff Reporter