Chennai: In what seems to have been a very bizarre incident on Monday - the day Vardah ripped Chennai apart - the body of a 75-year-old man was reporedly cut into two halves in a hit-and-run incident on GST Road and one part was carried for over 25 kilometers by a vehicle.
The police on Friday named the victim as Vasudevan from New Perungalathur after his relatives identified his body. The lower part of his body, wrapped in a cloth, was found in Padi near Korattur on Tuesday while the next day the top half of the body was found in Tambaram.
Police and relatives believe that Vasudevan was run over by a vehicle when crossing the road near Tambaram and the lower portion was carried accidentally by the unidentified vehicle to Padi during the storm. The relatives had lodged a missing complaint on Tuesday.
Vasudevan used to work as assistant to priests, who go around and conduct poojas in homes. On Monday, accompanied by two priests, he had left home at around 9 am. As he failed to return by night the family decided to file a complaint.
The family came to know from other priests that he had boarded a bus from Guindy to Tambaram on Monday evening and due to the cyclone there were no buses to Perungalathur. Police now believe that Vasudevan might have tried to cross the road when he was fatally knocked down. The upper body was kept in Chromepet GH.
The family members, after filing a missing complaint with the Peerkankaranai police station, had been making visits to all the mortuaries in the city.
At the Chromepet GH, the family identified the upper portion to be of that of Vasudevan with the help of the ‘poonal’ (sacred thread). On the same day, the family was told that the other half of the body was in Kilpauk Medical College. Both halves of the body were later handed over to the family on Friday, the police said.
