Tuesday, May 31 2005 20:17 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: Jeshma Raithatha, a 17-year-old NRI girl found murdered in a park in London last week, had been raped before she was killed, the Scotland Yard said today (May 31, 2005).

"Forensic tests reveal that the teenager had been a victim of sexual attack," a spokesman of the Scotland Yard said.

Investigators are also looking for a neighbour who disappeared after Jeshma, A-level student of Claremont High School in Kenton, northwest London, was killed.

The man, an Eastern European immigrant car wash attendant, was living in a house nearby shared with about a dozen people, all from Eastern Europe.

The latest finding has deepened the mystery of what happened to the music student in the six days between her disappearance from school and the time when pathologists believe that she was murdered.

Jeshma went missing after she left school on May 16 afternoon, three days before her 18th birthday.

Her body was found near an overgrown path close to a recreation ground 500 yards from her home in Greenford more than a week later.

A post-mortem examination showed that she had died on May 22, indicating that she may have been kidnapped and kept against her will.

Officers, some with dogs, searched and cordoned-off a house yesterday, which neighbours said was occupied by Russians.