A little over three months after he went ?missing?, the skeletal remains of seven-year-old Gautam Yadav were found on Monday morning in the same field where he was to have gone out to play ? off Kasba?s Lumbini Park Mental Home.

The child was still wearing the brown T-shirt and jeans that he was last seen in. The skull lay beside the body.

The remains of the child?s teeth and jaws, too, lay scattered around the ground, leaving police groping in the dark about the possible motive behind the murder.

This is the fourth case in the past three months when a missing child has been found murdered in the city, the last one being that of Rick Nath of Behala.

Barely a km away from the site where Gautam?s remains were found, the body of a two-month-old boy was discovered in a drain in Prantik Pally, in Kasba.

Residents of the area claimed that the baby was found inside a jute bag and that he wore a red cap.

Just a portion of the hand stuck out of the bag, prompting local people to inform police.

In Gautam?s case, bones lying scattered led to his body.

?It was around 10.30 am. We were looking for a cricket ball in a bush when we stumbled upon the skull. Initially, we ignored it. We found a few human bones lying scattered and then the body surfaced. We immediately informed our seniors,? said Achintya Sardar, a local youth of Bediadanga, in Kasba.

As word spread, local people informed Gautam?s mother, Bina Devi, who came running to the field. Seeing the clothes from a distance, she passed out. People realised what was wrong.

?It seemed a quirk of fate that the child?s remains lay in the place that he loved visiting the most,? said neighbour Rajendra Prasad Verma.

It was on October 2, a day before Mahalaya, when the KG II student of an English-medium school of the neighbourhood stepped out with his friend Sunny to join his elder brother Saroj on a cricket field.

Gautam slipped into his jeans and walked away waving to his mother. His two sisters and father, a cook at an eatery off the Exide intersection, were not at home.

That evening, when the boy did not return, Bina Devi confronted Ashok Sarkar, a local youth with whom her son was seen last. Ashok had reportedly sent Gautam on an errand.

?He would never come to pray at the temple nearby. But that evening, Ashok lay prostrate on the temple ground and initially refused to answer my question. When I forced him to speak, he pleaded ignorance. But I realised that he was terribly afraid to look at me,? said Bina.

Late that night, Gautam?s father Paramanand Yadav lodged a missing diary with Kasba police station. That was the last time police were civil to him. ?On my subsequent visits, the officers would simply refuse to speak to me,? Yadav lamented.

Police have detained Santosh for interrogation and have sent the body for post mortem.