THE parents of a 10-year-old girl who was found murdered at the weekend say the incident has saddened them and left them in shock.

THE parents of a 10-year-old girl who was found murdered at the weekend say the incident has saddened them and left them in shock.

"Seeing her body lying there in the mortuary left me shocked," Masego Kgomo's mother Kate Kgomo said.

The parents positively identified their daughter's body on Saturday after it was found near the Soshanguve railway station.

"I do not know how people can do this to a 10-year-old," the mother said.

"God knows what else they did to her before they killed her."

Police spokesperson Captain Julia Claasen said the results of an autopsy would be available today.

Masego's mother said: "The government should consider bringing back the death penalty.

"People have become so heartless that it is easy for them to kill innocent children."

Claasen said: "We will study the results of the autopsy and decide what charges to add on to the detained suspects."

The girl's father, Joseph Kgomo, 49, said he identified his daughter by her clothes and braids.

"It is still difficult to accept that it was her," he said.

"I am going to lobby for support for a petition for the government to consider reinstating the death penalty.

"Animals have taken away our children's freedom. I am broken, hurt and nothing will take away this pain."

The Grade 5 pupil, who had passed to Grade 6 at Dithapeng Primary school, went missing on New Year's Eve and was last seen in the company of four youths in Block H in the early hours of New Year's Day.

Nono Albert Mathebula, 26, Joseph Legabutla, 19, a 14-year-old minor, and another 19-year-old were arrested but only the first three appeared in the Soshanguve magistrate's court on kidnapping charges on Tuesday. The fourth youth was clear ed but was kept in police custody for his own safety.

Claasen sai d that the three suspects would be back in court tomorrow .