india

Updated: Feb 06, 2019 23:36 IST

A Tamil filmmaker, working as an assistant director in Chennai’s Kollywood film industry, was arrested on Wednesday on the charge of murdering his wife last month and dumping her body parts in garbage bin in the city.

With the arrest of Gopalakrishnan (51) from his Jafferkhanpet residence, the Pallikaranai police have solved the mystery behind the recovery of a woman’s limbs — a hand and two legs — at the Corporation dump yard at suburban Perungudi on January 19, a couple of days after the Pongal festival.

Corporation’s sanitation workers brought the garbage in a truck from Kodambakkam area of the city to Perungudi, who alerted the police about this.

The hand had a tattoo and police were initially clueless. But a missing woman complaint in Thoothukdi threw some light and the deceased was identified as Sandhya (39) from the southern port town of Thoothukudi.

It led to the arrest of Gopalakrishnan and during questioning, he admitted to having committed the crime, police said.

Police said Gopalakrishnan had produced a budget film financed by Sandhya in 2010. But it had flopped and a financial crunch forced him to work as an assistant director with his friends and acquaintances.

Meanwhile, frequent quarrels erupted between them as both suspected each other’s fidelity and they had filed for divorce. Though Sandhya had left for her maternal home in Thoothukudi, they were on talking terms as they have two kids, a son and daughter.

“Gopalakrishnan suspected that Sandhya, much younger to him, was having an affair. Since they were on talking terms, he invited her to Chennai during Pongal holidays. They had fought with each other since her arrival and on January 18 night, a day after Pongal festivities, he hit her in a fit of rage and she died on the spot. To conceal the crime, he had decapitated the body and sliced the limbs and threw them at different places. A hand and two legs, thrown in Kodambakkam were recovered from Perungudi,” police said.

However, police suspect that Gopalakrishnan alone could not have cut the body into pieces in his crowded neighbourhood. Further investigation is on to ascertain whether some of Gopalakrishnan’s friends helped him.

The news comes a day after a doctor in Madhya Pradesh was reported to have killed his driver, cut his body into over two dozen pieces and put them in a drum filled with acid to dissolve them, in a technique similar to one seen in TV show Breaking Bad.