Subhra?s poster, printed after her disappearance

Subhra Chakraborty, the nine-year-old daughter of a jewellery shop-owner who was lured away from the doorstep of her Umesh Dutta Lane residence on Sunday, had probably been given up as dead on Wednesday and dumped.

This was revealed by sleuths on Thursday evening, 36 hours after the child was found lying semiconscious under a tree in the garden of a neighbouring house.

She had bruises all over the body and a deep gash on her head.

Subhra had gone missing around 4.30 pm on Sunday after leaving home to buy chocolates from a nearby shop. Her father, Tapas Chakraborty, lodged a complaint with Burtolla police station, but the cops were clueless till she showed up as mysteriously as she had disappeared.

?She alone holds the key to the mystery that surrounds her disappearance and return in such a brutalised state,? said Gyanwant Singh, deputy commissioner (I) of police, detective department. ?We feel someone close to the family is responsible.?

Singh added that the girl had been hit on the head with an intention to kill her and the abductor might have left her for dead in that garden.

Police have alerted the outpost on the hospital premises to keep a watch on the building where Subhra is admitted, as the culprit might try to strike back.

Police were not allowed to question Subhra on Thursday, as doctors in the paediatric neuro-surgery ward of SSKM Hospital kept a close eye on her.

?She is recovering gradually, but is in no position to talk. She is still psychologically traumatised. I have told the police that our top priority is the child?s health, not the investigation,? said Santanu Tripathi, superintendent of SSKM Hospital.

?The good news is that she is responding to treatment,? he added.

A medical board comprising five experts would be set up on Friday to monitor the child?s recovery.

All that cops have as a lead now is the fact that the culprit ?was not only from the locality but also known to the girl?.

She went willingly with him to begin with, feel the sleuths. And he knew the area well enough to pick his spot to dump her.

?From the Beadon Street side, only a small wooden door is visible and no one can make out there is a garden inside. The abductor obviously knew about the garden,? said an officer.