The body of a five-and-a-half-year-old girl, who had been sexually assaulted, was found early on Friday at an under-construction site of a residential building complex near Vaddem lake at Dabolim. The girl’s mother told Vasco police that she suspects a group of labourers at the site committed the crime. Police have rounded up 20-25 migrant labourers from the site. The doctors at Chicalim subdistrict hospital had noted froth coming out from the girl’s mouth. The postmortem examination showed that the girl was sexually assaulted and then murdered. The girl’s parents spotted her lying at the site at 3.30am on Friday, police said, and sensing a grave situation took her to the subdistrict hospital. Doctors pronounced her dead on arrival and informed Vasco police that the death seemed suspicious. Vasco police have registered a case of sexual assault and murder and have added various sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Goa Children’s Act. The girl had been reported missing since late Thursday evening. Her parents conducted an intensive search and eventually found her not far from where they stay. The girl’s father works as a security guard. IGP Omvir Singh visited the crime scene and issued the necessary instructions to the investigators. (The victim’s identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)