Search for Sandhya’s severed head continues at Perungudi dump yard

The police need the head to confirm the identity of the deceased and in case it is not found, they will have to do a DNA test on the limbs found on January 21 to confirm that it belonged to Sandhya. The police sources said that they had difficulties to mobilise the workers to conduct the search in the dump yard and they had to bring in rag pickers to conduct the search. 

Police also used earth movers to search the mounds of garbage in the dump yard where at least 600 tonnes of garbage is disposed of every day. The police may have to search through 10,000 to 11,000 tonnes of garbage dumped there in past two weeks.

The police on Thursday produced Balakrishnan in the Alandur magistrate court and he was remanded in judicial custody.

Since Balakrishnan was arrested on Wednesday, the police had been grilling him to find what led to the murder. He confessed that their relationship was strained because Sandhya believed that he was too old for her.

Though the couple had been staying in Chennai, they were not living together. Balakrishnan said that they were on the verge of a divorce. Meanwhile, Balakrishnan invited her to his place after Pongal. During her visit, she reportedly refused sexual intimacy with him and made some comments about his age. Infuriated over this, he murdered her the next day, the police said.

After murdering her by hitting her on the head using a hammer, he chopped her body into seven pieces and disposed of it at different places in four bags. On January 22, sanitary workers found two chopped legs and a hand. Two weeks after that, the police identified the victim and arrested Balakrishnan on Wednesday.