A four-and-a-half-year-old girl was sacrificed in a village in Muzaffarnagar by a woman on the orders of a tantrik treating her, the police said on Wednesday.

The body of the child, Surjo, was found in a field near Kherki village in western Uttar Pradesh with her 'fingers cut off and her hair burnt to a cinder', they said.

A case of murder had been registered against four persons, including the woman and the tantrik, who were all said to be absconding.

The police said the woman, Rekha [Images], was a patient of a tantrik, Om Pal, who instructed her to sacrifice a child to be cleansed of her 'ailment'.

Along with two others, the woman allegedly abducted the girl and brutally sacrificed her, they said, adding that a hunt was on for the four suspects.

Details of when the girl was killed were not immediately known, the police said.