Body parts of a woman were found in three polythene packets inside an abandoned CISF barracks in Watgunge on Tuesday afternoon.
Police said the head, portions of the legs and a part of the woman’s chest were found wrapped in three polythene bags inside the compound of an old abandoned CISF barracks on Satya Doctor Road, not far from Watgunge police station.
There were no blood traces in the polythene bags, suggesting that the woman had been murdered elsewhere and the body had been dumped in the compound later.
“The body parts of a woman were found in three black polythene bags in an abandoned CISF barracks. The woman appears to be around 30-35 years old. She seems to be a Hindu married woman as she had a bindi on her forehead,” said deputy commissioner (port), of Kolkata Police, Harikrishna Pai.
Parts of the torso and the hands are missing. The feet that have been chopped off the leg are also missing, an officer said.
“The polythene that contained the head also had a brick in it,” the officer added.
Sources at the city police headquarters said a photograph of the woman’s head has been circulated across all the police stations in the city.
A preliminary inquiry by the police suggested that at least two women who were reported missing in the Eastern Suburban Division and the North Division had similar features. The verification process was in progress, senior officers said on Tuesday evening.
Around 2.50pm on Tuesday, a man who had entered the abandoned CISF compound was the first to spot a “big black polythene bag”.
“He slit open the bag and found a human body part. He immediately alerted the police. A team of officers from the Watgunge police station rushed to the spot and found the mutilated body parts,” said an officer in the Port division.
The homicide wing of the detective department has been engaged in the probe.
A sniffer from the dog squad of the Kolkata Police was taken to the spot to search for clues.
The police suspect the missing body parts could have been scattered and disposed of elsewhere.
The body parts have been sent for postmortem to ascertain the time and cause of death.
Police said they were examining footage from the CCTV cameras closest to the spot.
Last month, the body of a 70-year-old man was found stashed inside a red trolley on the banks of a canal in New Town.
In 2011, the body of a woman was found stuffed inside a flat-screen television box abandoned on a pavement in New Alipore. A few days later, the police identified
the woman as a resident of Howrah.