Ishan (Second from right)
The United Kingdom's Foreign and Commonwealth Office has said it is in contact with Indore police regarding the kidnap and murder of an eight-year-old British Indian boy.
Ishan Rawal, the son of two doctors who had moved from England to India, was kidnapped and murdered during a ceremony to celebrate the opening of his parents' hospital in Madhya
Pradesh last month.
"We are aware of the death of a British national in India. Our deepest sympathies are with the family, with whom we are in touch and to whom we are extending all possible consular support.
"We are also in touch with Indore police and will be following the investigation closely," a Foreign Office spokesperson said in London.
Ishan is believed to have gone missing on June 22, the day of the opening ceremony at Royal Shanti Hospital in Indore. He was eventually found in a woodland where he had been dumped in a pit.
His parents, Arvind and Nikita Rawal, who were based in Beverly in East Yorkshire before relocating to India, have issued pleas for people to back their efforts to have the murder fully investigated.
Indore police have arrested 25-year-old Shaan Das, who was friendly with the boy and is alleged to have confessed to his murder.
However, the boy's parents believe others may have been involved in Ishan's death.
They have requested an inquiry and urged the British High Commission to meet authorities in Delhi to widen the investigation.
"How can someone do such a thing? He was such a talented boy - he played tennis and was getting on very well at school. We are missing a very big part of our lives that we will never
get back," Nikita Rawal told 'Hull Daily Mail' newspaper in Yorkshire, northern England.
She and her husband were doctors at the Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital while in the UK and had moved to India to set up a hospital there.