Liga Skromane RIP: Thiruvananthapuram court convicts 2 men for Latvian tourist's rape and murder

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Thiruvananthapuram first additional district sessions court on Friday held both the accused - Umesh and Udayakumar of Thiruvallom - guilty of drugging, raping and murdering Latvian tourist Liga Skromane here in 2018. The quantum of punishment will be pronounced on Monday and the prosecution has sought the maximum punishment for the guilty.
The 33-year-old Liga had travelled to Kerala for ayurveda treatment on February 3, 2018. She went missing from an ayurveda hospital in Kovalam on March 14, 2018. Her decomposed body was recovered from a mangrove at Panathura on April 20.
Police later arrested Umesh (32) and Udayakumar (28) - both hailing from Vellar, Thiruvallom -on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Some people had seen the two taking Liga to the mangrove while a woman said she saw them selling a jacket worn by the tourist.
Judge K Sanilkumar held the accused guilty of all charges. The investigating officers had collected enough scientific evidence to prove charges under IPC Sections 302 (murder), 366 (abduction), 328 (causing hurt by means of poison with intent to commit offence), 376 (rape), 201 (destruction of evidence), 34 (criminal act done by several persons) and Section 20 (b) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act for keeping ganja.
According to the prosecution, the accused took Liga to the mangroves by promising to show her beautiful places and later gave her ganja. She fell unconscious on smoking ganja, when she was raped by the accused. A quarrel broke out between them when she regained consciousness and saw her dress removed. The two then killed the woman by pressing their elbow on her neck and breaking her neck bones. They hanged her body in the creepers to give an impression of suicide and escaped from the spot.
The prosecution had produced 104 witnesses, 112 documents and 81 material objects in the case.
Two of the witnesses had turned hostile in the case. The woman who claimed seeing the accused selling a leather jacket worn by the tourist went back on her words while Ashok Kumar, who did the chemical examination of the body, stated that the woman could have died of drowning and no sperms could be found in the vaginal specimen to confirm that she was raped. He also said the presence of a diatom in her sternum underlined that she had drowned.
Dr K Sasikala who did the postmortem - the 74th witness in the case - however said a few injuries on the body's neck were sufficient to cause death and they were caused due to application of a severe blunt force, perhaps with the elbow or knee.