Though the mystery shrouding the identity of the woman, whose severed limbs were recovered two weeks ago in Perungudi, was unravelled with the arrest of her husband, the Pallikaranai police are still rummaging through mounds of garbage to retrieve the missing torso and the head of the victim.
It all started on January 21, after conservancy workers in the city’s southern dumpyard found the lower portion of two legs and the right hand with a tattoo and two bangles.
From day one, the police were working with the help of records of missing persons, questioning tattoo artists, conservancy workers and film personalities in Kollywood. It was a challenge for the police to identify the woman, since no relative or any person she knew had preferred a complaint about the missing woman.
Only on February 3, Pallikaranai inspector Albin Raj received a call from the victim’s mother, Prasanna, saying the body parts they found might be that of her daughter Sandhya’s. Sandhya was a 37-year-old woman from Boothapandi village in Kanniyakumari district, Ms. Prasanna further informed, besides mentioning the fact that her daughter and son-in-law S.R. Balakrishnan, 51, a film director from Thoothukudi, were in Chennai, but were estranged now.
Further investigation led the police to Balakrishnan, who was living in Jafferkhanpet. Initially, he refused to admit to the crime but later admitted to having committed the murder.
According to the police, Sandhya’s family said the couple had two children.
Criminal case
Balakrishanan used to harass her physically. She decided to separate from him and moved her children to Thoothukudi. She filed a criminal case against Balakrishnan there. Recently, she acted in a few films and television serials while staying at a women’s hostel in Saidapet.
On January 19, Sandhya came to her husband’s residence in Jafferkhanpet and a quarrel broke out as he objected to her acting. Balakrishan pulled out a hammer and hit her on the head. She fell dead on the spot.
The next night, Balakrishnan cut her body into several parts using a sharp knife and put them in four bags. He took the bag containing the upper portion of the legs and threw it under the bridge on the Adyar river near Kasi Theatre.
He dumped the three other bags in different garbage bins. The next day, he called his wife’s family and told them she had gone abroad.
A senior police officer said, “Based on the confession of the accused, we recovered part of the legs under the bridge near Kasi Theatre and some of our personnel are rummaging through the garbage in Perungudi to trace the missing torso and head. The garbage lorry transported them from the bins mentioned by the accused to the garbage dump.”
The police produced Balakrishnan before the Judicial Magistrate Court-I in Alandur. He was lodged in the Central Prison in Puzhal.
