Woman body dumped in suitcase in Salem

A suitcase containing the decomposed body of an unidentified woman was found near Sankari on Monday.

Residents of Vaikundam locality discovered a suitcase under a bridge on the Salem-Coimbatore National Highway with a foul smell emanating from it. They informed Village Administrative Officer Jayakumar, who informed Sankari police. Police arrived at the spot and opened the suitcase to find a woman’s decomposing body.

The Salem District Superintendent of Police (SP) Gautam Goyal and Sankari DSP Raja also investigated the spot. The police sent the body to Salem Government Hospital for a postmortem and are verifying CCTV footage in the locality. Forensic experts gathered fingerprints from the spot. A sniffer dog was brought to the spot and ran some distance on the national highway but did not catch anyone.

Sankari police registered a case and three special teams were formed to nab the culprits. The police sources said that the face of the deceased was covered in plastic and the body was covered in blankets. The suitcase was reportedly purchased from North India, and police are verifying the details of vehicles that passed through the National Highway for the past one week, sources added.

Sankari DSP Raja said that the deceased’s identity could not be ascertained due to decomposition, and said the woman may have been murdered five or six days before. “We are corresponding with police in Coimbatore, Erode, and Namakkal districts. Only after the postmortem report, will we be able to confirm the cause of death,” Mr. Raja added.