Police rule out sexual assault after post-mortem in Chennai triple murder case

Based on a post-mortem report, the Greater Chennai police ruled out rape or sexual assault on Bihar woman Munitha Kumari, who was murdered along with her husband and their two-year-old son by three men from Bihar in Taramani last week.

After a three-day search, the police, on Friday, recovered the body of the 20-year-old woman from the Perungudi dump yard in connection with the triple murder case. The woman was allegedly murdered along with her husband and their son on January 24.

The case came to light on January 26, when passers-by noticed blood oozing from a gunny bag left near a two-wheeler showroom on Indira Nagar’s First Avenue in Adyar, and alerted the police. In the bag, they found the body of an unidentified man, who was later identified as Gaurav Kumar, a native of Sheikhpura district in Bihar. He had come to Chennai with his family in search of employment.

Investigations revealed that Gaurav had been staying at the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) campus in Taramani, after being promised a job by Sathyender alias Santhosh Kumar, 30, a day watchman at the institute. Police said that on the night of January 24, an altercation broke out while the men were consuming alcohol, following which, Gaurav, his wife, and the child were allegedly assaulted and killed by Santhosh Kumar, Lalit Yadav, 40, and Vikash Kumar, 24. All the accused are natives of Bihar.

The bodies were reportedly tied in gunny bags and dumped at different locations in the city. Earlier, the child’s body was recovered from the Buckingham Canal near Madhya Kailash. The woman’s body was recovered from the Perungudi dump in a decomposed state and sent to Government Royapettah Hospital for post-mortem.

Police sources said the post-mortem, conducted by a team of doctors, indicated that there were no signs of rape or sexual assault. The doctors said that the woman died due to injuries caused by being hit with an iron rod.