CHENNAI: The city police combed through heaps of garbage at the Perungudi dump yard for the second consecutive day, searching for the body of the Bihar migrant worker's wife, with little success till Thursday evening.
The triple murder of a migrant worker, his wife, and their two-year-old son came to light after a probe into the identity of the body found stuffed in a sack dumped along the road on Indira Nagar 1st avenue, Adyar, on Monday led police to the accused persons.
On ascertaining the identity of the man, the Adyar police probed his acquaintances and learnt that he had come to Chennai with his 21-year-old wife and son in search of employment.
He was introduced to one of the accused, Satyender (30) alias Santhosh Kumar, who promised to get him a job as a security guard. Satyender worked as a day watchman at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Taramani.
As the young family did not have a place to stay, Satyender had accommodated them in an unused room on the fourth floor of the institute. On the night of January 24, the victim and Satyender were joined for a drinking session by Lalit Yadav (40), who works as a night watchman at the institute, and Bikash Kumar (24), a security guard at an apartment complex in Kotturpuram.
Police said that after a scuffle during the drinking session, the migrant worker, his wife, and the child were beaten to death, and their bodies were disposed of at various places.
In an official statement, the police said that the three accused, Satyender, Lalit Yadav and Bikash Kumar, are being produced before the magistrate.
On Wednesday, the police recovered the child's body by the Buckingham Canal near Kasturba Nagar MRTS railway station and began searching for the woman's body in the Perungudi dump yard, after the accused told police that they dumped her body in a garbage bin near a bakery in Taramani.
Police estimate that at least 500 truckloads of garbage were dumped in the dump yard since the murder and are coordinating with the garbage truck drivers and workers at the site to triangulate the area where the body could be found.