BUTTERWORTH (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - The body of a newborn girl with its head almost detached and both arms missing has been found along the bank of Sungai Prai in Butterworth, Penang.

The remains were spotted by a group of friends who saw a dog biting at what they first assumed was a dead puppy.

"We got curious, so we walked over to where the dog was," said the man, who declined to be named. "That's when we saw that the dog was actually biting at the body of a baby," he said, adding that they chased the dog away before calling the police at about 1pm on Saturday.

Central Seberang Prai district police chief Asst Comm Rusli Mohd Noor said the body had been sent to the Seberang Jaya Hospital for a post-mortem.