IIze Skromane identifying the body of her sister Liga. (File)
POLICE ON Thursday arrested two persons on charges of raping and murdering a 33-year-old Latvian woman, whose body was found hanging from a tree in a swampy region near Kovalam beach on April 20, days after she went missing from an ayurvedic treatment centre here on March 14.
Umesh and Udayan were drug peddlers who used to frequent the mangrove at Thiruvallam, six km from Kovalam, according to the police. The two have been booked under IPC Sections 328, 342, 366, 376, 302, and 34 and under Section 20(b) of the NDPS Act.
The postmortem report had confirmed that the woman died of strangulation. The forensic and chemical reports led to the conclusion that she was raped, the police said.
DGP Loknath Behera told a media conference that the accused had offered the woman ganja at the Kovalam beach and took her to the mangrove region on a fibre boat. They allegedly drugged her, abused her sexually and when she resisted, they allegedly strangulated her and hanged her body using creepers, he said.
The police said the rape and murder took place the same day the woman went missing from the ayurvedic centre, where she was undergoing treatment for depression and skin disease. The younger sister of the deceased had lodged a missing person complaint the same day.
The woman’s body was cremated at a public crematorium in Thiruvananthapuram in the presence of her husband and sister on Thursday. BJP district president S Suresh had moved a complaint with the state human rights commission, saying the body should not be cremated as the investigation was not over. While the commission had issued an order against cremation, the family went ahead with the decision to cremate the deceased.