CHENNAI: City police on Friday (January 30) recovered the body of the wife of the slain Bihar migrant worker from the Perungudi dump yard after a three-day search.
They added that the woman’s body, found in a decomposed state, was likely buried in the dump yard since January 26.
According to police, at least 500 truckloads of garbage were dumped at the site after the murder, and officials coordinated with sanitation workers and truck drivers to identify the likely area.
The triple murder of a migrant worker, his 21-year-old wife and their two-year-old son came to light after police found the man’s body stuffed in a sack in Adyar on January 26. Tracing the suspects through the victim’s acquaintances, police learnt that his wife and son had also been killed and dumped at different locations. The child’s body was recovered from the Buckingham Canal near the CIT campus in Taramani on January 28, while the woman’s body was found at the Perungudi dump yard today.
Meanwhile, the woman's body has been sent to the Government Royapettah Hospital (GRH) for post-mortem. Doctors will ascertain the exact cause of death and check for external injuries or signs of sexual assault.
The man’s body has been handed over to his elder brother, who works in Chennai, and taken to Bihar for the last rites. The couple’s son’s body remains at GRH and will be released to relatives after autopsy.
Police said that after a scuffle during the drinking session when they allegedly made lewd remarks at his wife, the migrant worker, his wife, and the child were beaten to death, and their bodies were disposed of at different locations.
On Wednesday (January 28), police recovered the child’s body from the Buckingham Canal near Kasturba Nagar MRTS railway station and began searching the Perungudi dump yard after the accused told investigators that the woman’s body had been dumped in a garbage bin near a bakery in Taramani.
Chennai police have so far arrested three suspects -- Lalit Prasad (42), Vikas Yadav (24), and Satyendran alias Santhosh Kumar (33), all from Bihar’s Nalanda district. They were remanded to judicial custody on January 29.
Police said further investigation is under way to establish the sequence of events and the role of each accused.
Police said the 24-year-old man, a native of Bihar’s Nalanda district, had worked as a security guard in Sriperumbudur in the city for two years before returning to his native village for several months. He returned to Chennai on January 21 in search of work as a security guard. He was introduced to one of the accused, Satyender (30) alias Santhosh Kumar, who promised him a job as a security guard. Satyender worked as a day watchman at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Taramani.
As the family did not have a place to stay, Satyender 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), 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, when they allegedly made lewd remarks at his wife, the migrant worker was beaten to death. His wife and their child were also killed, and their bodies were disposed of at different locations.