A half-charred body of a woman, aged about 25 years, was found abandoned inside a gunnybag here on Thursday.
Residents of Bharathi Nagar in Periyamilaguparai in the city came across the gunny bag containing the body when they were disposing of garbage in an empty plot of land. Smoke was still emanating out of the sack. The panic stricken residents passed on the information to the police who rushed to the spot. Initial probe revealed that the body packed into the gunny bag and set fire to. There were bruises and cut injuries in the legs and hands. However, except the hands, the whole body was reduced to ashes. The police found a bottle with kerosene and a liquor bottle beside the body.
Police said that the identity of the woman was yet to be ascertained. They also passed on the information to other police stations.
The body was shifted to the GH for post mortem. Finger print experts also arrived at the spot and conducted investigations. “Since the bushes prevent visibility from the residential area, the miscreants would have used the chance and patiently torched the body after pouring kerosene. Since the smoke was still emanating out of the body when the residents saw it pointing to the fact that the incident would have happened after midnight,” a police official said.
Since the particular vacant plot of land was used to dump garbage and, sometimes, the garbage was set fire to, the local residents did not smell a rat when the body was being burnt.
The miscreants had chosen the particular spot to discard the body to cast away any trace of evidence, the police added.
“This is for the first time, we are experiencing such an incident. Since the particular spot is a few yards away from the residential area, the miscreants could have chosen this to escape from the hands of law,” one of the residents said.
Meanwhile, the police was also making inquiries with the construction workers from other states if any woman of that age group had gone missing in recent times.