Overview

• Police connected four decomposed bodies found in Panapakam Reserve Forest to a July missing-persons complaint from Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.
• At the site, officers found a man hanging and a woman nearby, then exhumed two children from freshly dug pits.
• A hospital slip naming Kalai Selvan and matching call data records helped identify one deceased, with the woman and children suspected to be Jayamalini and her daughters.
• The missing woman's husband, Venkatesan, who works in Kuwait, is in custody for questioning as officers probe his links to Kalai Selvan and the circumstances of the deaths.
• Postmortems were conducted on-site and the bodies buried there, with reports expected in about a week as police assess recovered items and examine reported family debt near ₹1 crore; investigators have not concluded whether it was homicide or suicide.