Seven students, who appeared in the Assam board's Class 10 examinations, were detained for allegedly raping and murdering a 12-year-old girl in Assam's Biswanath district, police said on Monday.

"The girl, with multiple injuries in her body, was found hanging from a tree in Chakla village under Gohpur police station on Saturday. The crime might have occurred on Friday," a police official said.

He said that following a complaint of an uncle of the victim, police detained the seven students, all of whom had appeared for High School Leaving Certificate exams.

As all the accused are juvenile, following a local court order, they were now lodged in an observation home.

The girl's uncle told the media and the police that after an examination, the boys had called the girl to a house on the pretext of holding a party and subsequently raped her.

Police and victim's family suspected that the girl was hanged from a tree in a forest after the mass rape by the accused. The police said they were awaiting the autopsy report to ascertain whether the girl was raped.

After the recovery of the girl's body, the boys had been absconding but the police were able to apprehended them from different places of the district on Saturday.

A large number of agitated people assembled in front of the Gohpur police station and demanded that the detained boys be handed over to them.