CHENNAI: A 52-year-old woman, a domestic help who was deemed missing, was found dead in the septic tank of an apartment complex in Maduravoyal on Friday.

Police suspect the deceased – Kala (52) – to have accidentally fallen into the open manhole on Tuesday.

Kala was a resident of Dhanalakshmi Nagar in Alapakkam. Investigations revealed that she was working as a domestic help at few apartments in the area.

Kala had gone to work on Tuesday and did not return home till Wednesday, after which her family members filed a police complaint. On Friday, residents in the building sensed a bad odour from the septic tank after which they opened it and found a dead body which was in varied stages of decomposition.

The Maduravoyal police reached the scene and fished out the body and sent it to a GH for post-mortem. Preliminary inquiries suggested that she may have slipped into the septic tank while cleaning the parking floor.

Apartment dwellers too had assumed that Kala had taken leave when she didn’t turn up for work. A case under Section 174 (unnatural death) of CrPC is registered.