CHENNAI: The murder of a migrant worker from Bihar, whose body was found stuffed in a gunny bag at Indira Nagar in Adyar on Monday morning, has taken a grim turn, with police confirming it to be a triple murder, including that of his two-year-old son.
Chennai police teams carried out search operations at multiple locations, including the Perungudi dumpyard, on Wednesday to trace the bodies of the victim’s murdered wife and child. The search led to the recovery of the child’s body from near the Cooum river at Madhya Kailash. Efforts are still under way to locate the woman’s body.
Five Bihar workers — Sikandar (33), Narender Kumar (45), Rabindranath Tagore (45) and Bikas (24) — have been arrested in connection with the case. The police are also probing whether the woman was sexually assaulted before being murdered, but officials said this could be confirmed only after the recovery of her body and postmortem examination.
According to the police, preliminary inquiries suggest that the family of three arrived in Chennai on January 21 in search of work and became acquainted with the suspects through a mutual friend. The family allegedly moved to different locations depending on the work secured by the group at various construction sites.
On the night of January 25, while staying at their most recent work site, the victim and the suspects allegedly consumed alcohol, following which an argument broke out when the suspects allegedly attempted to misbehave with the woman.
Interrogation revealed murder of wife and child
Police suspect that the gang killed the man first, followed by his wife and child, and disposed of the bodies separately.
The case came to light after the man’s body, with facial injuries and hands tied behind the back, was found outside an apartment complex on Indira Nagar First Avenue. Inquiry and scrutiny of CCTV footage revealed visuals of two men transporting the gunny bag on a motorcycle and dumping it at the spot. Five suspects were subsequently detained, and inquiries with them allegedly revealed that the woman and the child were also murdered by the gang.
“Based on this information, police teams launched searches for the bodies. It was found that the suspects had dumped the woman’s body in a garbage bin, which was later collected by a truck and transported to the Perungudi dumpyard along with other waste. A search is on to trace the body.
The child’s body was found near the Cooum river at Madhya Kailash on Wednesday afternoon,” a police source told TNIE at the dump yard. Sources indicated that the murders may have taken place within the premises of the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) in Taramani, where the group was allegedly working at the time. It was also learnt that one of the suspects may have been employed as a security guard at the institute.
However, police declined to confirm these details, stating that an official statement may be issued on Thursday. When TNIE visited the ICT campus on Wednesday, no visible signs of a crime scene were noticed, with regular classes continuing as usual. Students said they were largely unaware of any such incident having occurred on the premises.
Crime reveals serious lapse in policing: EPS
Chennai: AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami alleged that the crime highlighted serious lapses in policing and questioned the DMK government’s claim that TN is safe for women and migrant workers. Meanwhile, the TN Fact Check Unit clarified on X, stating that misinformation was being circulated on social media claiming that TN has become unsafe for north Indian migrants. The unit said investigations revealed that all the five suspects in the case are from Bihar.