Mexican police were searching yesterday for a 12-year-old boy hired as a hitman by a drug cartel, Morelos state prosecutors said.

Police have been searching for the boy, known only by his nickname “El Ponchis,” since late October, after military forces released him due to his young age.

He had earlier been arrested along with six suspected hitmen for the South Pacific Cartel.

The suspects allegedly confessed they had killed several men found hanging from bridges in Cuernavaca, less than 100 kilometres south of Mexico City.

They said the boy was in charge of cutting the victims’ heads and genitalia, according to local media.

“We are looking for him but we still haven’t arrested him,” an official from the Morelos state prosecutor’s office said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still ongoing.

Cuernavaca, where many weal-thy families from the capital keep a secondary residence, is also the site of a fierce battle between rival drug traffickers fighting for control of the Arturo Beltran Leyva cartel after its leader of the same name was killed by military forces last December.

President Felipe Calderon has dispatched 50,000 troops to contain Mexico’s brutal drug war, but the four-year crackdown has so far failed to stem the bloodshed that has claimed some 28,000 lives.