A manhunt has been started for Kalika Murao, who comes from Chhaheliya village in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur district, after he spirited away seven-year-old Chetna Champa Harijan from the grounds of a temple in Banke district in southwestern Nepal, police said.

The girl went missing last summer. Police investigations showed Murao had taken her to Shahjahanpur district in Uttar Pradesh. The girl, who belongs to the economically and socially disadvantaged Dalit community, was finally traced to the residence of a man called Rajendra Prasad Awasthi in Shahjahanpur last week, police said.

When her father Sumiran Champa Harijan reached the Indian district with a police team, she was first handed over to Nari Niketan, a state-run shelter for women and children, and then finally brought back to Nepal. Police said the abductor could be hiding in Nepal and are on the lookout for him in the plains.

There were no immediate details available about the motive behind the abduction.  According to tradition, tantriks regard young girls and women as an essential part of their quest to attain supernatural powers.