Four Bodies Found In Tirupati Forest Linked To Missing Case In TN

TIRUPATI: Police have linked the mysterious finding of four bodies in the reserve forest of Panapakam on the Chandragiri-Pakala border to a missing complaint registered in Tamil Nadu in July.

The mystery surfaced on Saturday when cattle herders alerted police after spotting two decomposed bodies in the forest. Police teams found the body of a man hanging from a tree and the body of a woman lying nearby covered with a cloth. Two freshly dug pits had been located at the site. On their excavation, police found bodies of two children. A spade believed to have been used for digging had been found in nearby bushes, along with broken liquor bottles, a mobile phone without a SIM card and scattered belongings.

Sources said the medical slip of a hospital recovered from the spot became the first breakthrough in the investigation. The slip contained the name Kalai Selvan from Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. Based on this, police pursued enquiries and matched call data records (CDRs) to establish the identity of one of the deceased as Kalai Selvan, a native of Puducherry.

Investigators suspect the bodies of the woman and two children are those of Jayamalini from Tamil Nadu and her two daughters. Jayamalini’s husband Venkatesan had reported them missing in July. Venkatesan works in Kuwait and filed the missing complaint after he returned home in Tamil Nadu and found his wife and daughters missing.

Police have taken Venkatesan into custody for questioning. His connection to Kalai Selvan and circumstances leading to the four deaths are being probed. “The evidence we have gathered points to a close association between the deceased and Venkatesan. But the motive behind the deaths is still unclear. We are awaiting forensic confirmation before drawing conclusions,” a senior Tirupati district police officer disclosed.