Police are looking for a couple suspected of attacking and then burying alive a six-year-old girl in an Indian village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

On Monday morning, the girl's neighbors, a married couple, told the child that her mother had asked them to take her to a fair in another village, according to her uncle, Alok Awasthi.

As they headed away from their home village of Sidhauli, they reached a sugar cane field, her uncle said.

The female neighbor then tried to strangle her, the girl reportedly told authorities and her uncle.

A few villagers working in a field nearby saw three people head into the sugar cane field. But when they emerged without the girl, they grew suspicious, Awasthi told CNN.

They found the unconscious girl buried in a pit, said Ramesh Kumar, the station officer at the Sitapur Police Station.

She eventually regained consciousness and was discharged from the local hospital.

While she doesn't remember being buried alive, the girl identified the neighbors as suspects when police showed her their photos, her uncle said.

"There is clearly an intention to kill the girl but as of now, we don't know why," said Kumar.

While the motivation remains unclear, the girl's mother has also been missing since the day of the incident. Local police have filed a case against the two suspects, but have not been able to locate them.

(CNN)