The body of a seven-year-old girl who had been raped and strangled was found in India yesterday, compounding outrage over a series of horrific sexual attacks on women or girls.

Nationwide protests have been held in the past week over the gang-rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Jammu and Kashmir state.

In the latest case, the child's body was found on a building site early yesterday, hours after she went missing from a wedding in the Etah district of Uttar Pradesh state.

Police said a neighbour who was putting up tents for the wedding had been detained on suspicion of luring the girl to the secluded building.

In the Kashmir case, the rape and killing was committed in January. But outrage has mounted as details of the rape emerged. Police say she was drugged and raped for days at a Hindu temple before being beaten to death.

Eight men, all Hindus, have been arrested for the crime. Police said the accused targeted the girl because they wanted to drive her nomadic Muslim tribe out of the Hindu-dominated region.

Two Jammu and Kashmir state ministers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) resigned after they attended rallies organised to defend the accused.

The BJP government has also faced criticism after one of its legislators in Uttar Pradesh state was arrested last week for the alleged rape of a 17-year-old woman.

The woman's father died in police custody as he agitated for the authorities to take up the case.

Amid public outrage, a collective of retired civil servants has written to Modi calling the current situation a “moment of existential crisis” in which the government's response would determine whether the nation could “overcome the crisis of constitutional values, of governance and the ethical order”.

In a strongly worded letter the 49 signatories, including secretaries and top law and order officials, sought to pin the blame on right wing politics.

“The bestiality and the barbarity involved in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old child shows the depths of depravity that we have sunk into. In post-independence India, this is our darkest hour and we find the response of our government, the leaders of our political parties inadequate and feeble,” the letter said.

“At this juncture, we see no light at the end of the tunnel and we hang our heads in shame. Our sense of shame is all the more acute because some of our younger colleagues... also seem to have failed in their duty,” it added.

A 2014 UN report said one in three rape victims in India was a minor. Nearly 11,000 cases of child rape were reported in India in 2015, according to the National Crime Records Bureau's latest figures.

RAPE AND MURDER SPARKS RIOT IN KARACHI

Meanwhile, in Pakistan's Karachi, at least one man was killed and several injured yesterday when a riot broke out in protest at the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl.

Crowds took to the streets after the body of the victim was discovered late Monday.

The rioting comes months after six-year-old Zainab Fatima Ameen was raped and killed in eastern Pakistan's city of Kasur, sparking nationwide outrage and soul-searching over how the country fails to protect its most vulnerable.

In February a Pakistani court handed down four death sentences on the man charged with the killing.