CHENNAI: A 35-year-old man was arrested for allegedly murdering his wife and three stepdaughters and sleeping with the corpses, on Friday. The murders came to light late on Thursday night when the residents of a building on Muthu Street in Royapettah called up the house owner complaining of a foul stench.
The owner alerted the police, who broke into Chinnarasu’s one-room house and found the partially decomposed bodies of the four unclad women. Chinnarasu allegedly killed his wife and three stepdaughters on Tuesday and managed to keep them hidden from his neighbours for three days, before the stench of decomposing bodies triggered an alarm in the area.
Police officials at the scene suspected Chinnarasu had intercourse with the corpses, a theory that can be validated only after autopsy. On Thursday, before the bodies were found, Chinnarasu was confronted by the residents seeking to know the reason behind the foul odour. Though he fended off the questions, he later absconded and was arrested on Friday while loitering near the Marina Beach. “Chinnarasu used to frequently quarrel with his wife C Meena alias Pandiammal (38).
It is said that he once tried to sexually abuse one of his stepdaughters. Ever since, Pandiammal forced him to sleep outside the house. In the wee hours of Tuesday, he gained entry into the house and began killing all the four one after the other in their sleep,” said a police officer. Chinnarasu and Meena had moved into the locality along Muthu Street in 2012. Meena had three daughters - Pavithra (19), Parimala (18) and Sneha (16) - out of her previous marriage with whom Chinnarasu, a cook at a sweet stall in Foreshore Estate, shared lodgings in the cramped residential building, hardly 200 metres from the Royapettah police station.
According to the neighbours, Pavithra was a polytechnic student, while Parimala was trying to get admission for some paramedical course. Sneha was a class XII student. “The last we saw of the women was on Monday after they returned from their native place in Karaikudi last week,” said a neighbour requesting anonymity. On the same day, Chinnarasu and Meena quarrelled over the former’s behaviour towards Pavithra, said a police official.
“He was sent out for the night, but he woke up around 3 am and entered the house. He killed Meena by hitting her with an iron rod. He then proceeded to kill his stepdaughters by strangulating them using the wire of an iron box,” a statement from the city police read. What foxed the neighbours was Chinnarasu’s business a usual behaviour.
“When we were talking about the foul smell in the building, he picked up a dead rat saying it was the source of stench,” said Murugan, a neighbour. However, when the smell grew stronger, Chinnarasu, fearing that his game was up, absconded on Thursday. It was then that house owner Raja Bahadur called in the police around 11 pm.