The city police, while not ruling out foul play, have sent the blood samples of seven-year-old Yogita Thakre to forensic laboratory here as advised by doctors from the Government Medical College who conducted the post-mortem on the girl who was found dead in the car of state BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday.

“This has been done as per the advice of the doctors who performed the post-mortem. The doctors, while stating that the death occurred due to smothering, said final opinion on whether the girl was raped will be given after the report is received from the forensic lab,” a statement issued by city police on Thursday said.

The statement mentions that there was blood discharge from the girl’s nose and a reddish discharge from her rectum and that there were blood stains on her undergarment. Incidentally, the police hadn’t mentioned these in their statements on Wednesday.

Yogita had got into the car in the afternoon while playing. Her mother Vimal was working at a nearby household and elder sister Nisha was at a nearby beauty parlour. Apparently, the car with central locking system got locked from inside and, as the post-mortem report said, the girl got “smothered” to death after remaining inside the ‘hot’ car for nearly two hours.

She was found by Gadkari’s staff while the car was being readied to fetch him from airport. Gadkari was in Mumbai when the incident happened.

Assistant Commissioner of Police J D Dabhade said the two security personnel and the car driver, who were on duty at the time of the incident, were being questioned.