A nine-year-old girl was allegedly raped and murdered at Hatpada in Kotagarh area of Odisha's Kandhamal district, police said Sunday. The incident took place when the girl, a student of class four, had gone for a bath to a nearby nullah after returning home from school on Saturday, Additional Superintendent of Police U R Das said.

When the girl did not return home for a long time, her father lodged a complaint with Kotagarh police station. Later in the evening, villagers spotted her body lying half-naked near a bush with blood and injury marks, the police said.