The body of the child, between 9 and 11 years in age, was recovered on April 6.
The Surat police have decided to depend on DNA test after the identification of the little girl -- whose horrific rape and murder fuelled nationwide protests over the weekend -- hit a rough patch. The family from Andhra Pradesh, which identified the child from a police tweet and came to Surat, faced doubts after seeing her body. It may take upto a week to match the DNA samples.
Sources in Surat and Andhra Pradesh police said there was a mismatch not only in facial features, but height and fingerprints that were availed from the missing child's biometric records from Aadhaar.
The man who came to identify the girl is a labourer from Markapuram, located in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh. His daughter, who was admitted at a residential school, had gone missing from the hostel on October 10 last year. The matter was reported to the police a week later, said Satya Yesubabu, the district police chief.
The Surat police said they would take a final call on the basis of the DNA samples. "We are not going by the claims of the family. We are waiting for DNA samples report," city police chief Satish Sharma said.
The Surat police tweet -- containing an appeal for identification -- was posted on Monday after they drew a blank despite repeated efforts. Seeing the child' image, the couple -- residents of the coastal district of Prakasam -- thought she was their daughter who had gone missing in October. The police said they would do a DNA test to confirm identity.
The body of the child, aged between 9 and 11, was found on April 6 in Surat. It had been abandoned at a desolate spot near a stadium to avoid detection, the police said.
A postmortem examination revealed that she had been repeatedly raped, violated with wooden objects, strangled and smothered.
There were 86 wounds on the body. Going by the wounds, the report also said it was likely that she had been kept in captivity for at least a week.
The police thought there was a possibility that she might be the daughter of a migrant family from Bengal or Odisha who flock to work in the diamond city. But a door-door search in the immediate vicinity, as well as collaboration with the police of the concerned states, did not help.